Patna Aug 11 :- Eight-time Bihar CM Nitish Kumar will seek a vote of confidence during a two-day special session of the assembly later this month. The trust vote will be preceded by the election of a new speaker, replacing Vijay Kumar Sinha of BJP, with whom the CM had a spat in the House recently.
At its first cabinet meeting, also attended by RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, the new government decided to convene the assembly on August 24 and 25.
A JD(U) functionary said Tejashwi would be officially notified as the deputy CM soon. “Other ministers will be sworn in over the next few days, once the three main constituents of the alliance — JD(U), RJD and Congress —decide on the number of portfolios and the ministers.”
Nitish dismissed BJP’s prediction that the new government wouldn’t last its full term. The CM said his estranged saffron ally should be worried more about whether the party would be back to where it stood in the 2015 assembly polls, when JD(U), RJD and Congress last came together. BJP had taken a beating at the hands of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine in the 2015 Bihar polls, winning only 53 seats out of the 157 it contested.
Before Wednesday’s swearing-in, Nitish spoke to ailing RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who is currently living in daughter and Rajya Sabha member Misa Bharti’s Delhi residence. Besides inquiring about Lalu’s health, Nitish is learnt to have discussed portfolio distribution with him. Sources in JD(U) said Nitish would retain the all-important home department and general administration portfolios, while RJD may get most of the departments that were with BJP in the erstwhile government.
Senior functionaries of BJP, which remains the second largest party in the assembly with 77 MLAs, were conspicuous by their absence at the Raj Bhavan swearing-in. “We did not receive any invitation.
“Even if we did, we wouldn’t have been witness to the formation of a government that has been installed after betraying the people of Bihar,” former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said. Outside Raj Bhavan and the residences of Nitish and Tejashwi, hundreds of supporters of JD(U) and RJD celebrated the formation of the new government by beating drums, bursting crackers and distributing sweetmeats among supporters.
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