Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as the chief minister of the new Grand Alliance government in Bihar at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday at 2 p.m., along with deputy chief minister. The announcement came on Tuesday evening on official Twitter handle of his Mahagathbandhan partner Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). According to sources, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav is billed to serve as Nitish’s deputy again in the new government.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday trashed his alliance with BJP and met Governor Phagu Chauhan second time in the day to stake claim to form a new government with his Grand Alliance partners, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Indian National Congress and left parties. Nitish also submitted a list of 164 MLAs to the Governor whose support he has enlisted for the new government. He was accompanied by RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav and other opposition leaders to the meeting with the Governor.
The Daily Guardian on Tuesday morning broke the news that the Bihar chief minister was set to break away from his alliance with the BJP to form a new government in alliance with the RJD and Congress party.
Earlier in the day, Nitish met the Governor to tender his resignation after a meeting of all MLAs and MPs of his party Janata Dal (United) at his official residence in the morning, where the decision to break off from the BJP alliance was taken. Nitish headed to the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation to the governor. “I have resigned, I have informed all my MLAs,” Nitish informed the media. The move came after JD(U) legislators asked him to quit the BJP-led NDA in the party meeting.
Speaking to the media after meeting the Governor the second time, Nitish said, “We submitted a list of 164 MLAs to the Governor and staked claim to form a new government. He will let us know when
Ramchandra Prasad Singh, who was considered his confidante.
The evidence of this conspiracy, JD(U) leaders said, would be made public soon.
Many Bihar-based JD(U) and BJP leaders told The Daily Guardian on Monday that an audio conversation in which Singh was purportedly heard talking to a BJP heavyweight at the Centre. The two leaders were discussing on how Singh was going to break the JD(U) from within and dislodge Nitish from the government, with help from the BJP.
The said conversation, according to the sources, took place sometime around in March–April this year. Singh, who had taken oath as a Union minister in July 2021, had to resign last month after Nitish decided not to nominate him for a second Rajya Sabha term. The unannounced visit of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan to Patna on the night of 5 May during which he met Nitish and left early morning next day too was likely undertaken in view of this conversation.
Significantly, till Monday noon, Bihar-based BJP leaders were assured that Nitish will not break the alliance and the meeting of the JD(U) party leaders he had called on Tuesday was just a political posturing to seek more ministerial berths in the Union cabinet and more autonomy in running the state. However, two JD(U) leaders had told The Daily Guardian on Sunday that the alliance was going to end as Nitish had made up his mind. One of the leaders had then quipped, “Gaadi kaafi agey nikal chuki hai (The tussle has reached a point beyond redemption).”
Senior leaders like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nand Kishore Yadav and Sushil Kumar Modi, who know the state and party workers in and out, with whom Nitish shares a very cordial relation, have been pushed to the side lines post the November 2020 polls by the emerging group of Union ministers Bhupender Yadav, Nityanand Rai and state chief Sanjay Jaiswal. As a result, there was no BJP leader left in Bihar or in Delhi who Nitish could trust and this played a vital role in deteriorating the relation between the two erstwhile alliance partners.
None of these senior leaders was aware of the developments taking place in Bihar all these times.
Ultimately, the BJP had to field Prasad in Patna to mount an attack on Nitish on Tuesday night. He “reminded” Nitish that it was because of the BJP that he reached the political stature he had attained. He claimed that the allegations that BJP was trying to break the JD(U) were baseless.
According to insiders, some discussion on JD(U), RJD and Congress coming together again took place in May when the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, along with other party leaders, had gone to the United Kingdom for an event. This came after Nitish had raised eyebrows among the BJP circle by attending an Iftar hosted by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family in Patna in April.
However, what has come as a surprise is that the BJP leadership was caught unawares.