Bihar’s political arithmetic has changed. Immediately after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s announcement to snap ties with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become lonely in the land of Magadh. All political parties – the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, the Left and Jitanram Manjhi’s outfit Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) – have resolved to side with the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan). Out of 243 seats in Bihar Assembly, one is lying vacant, so to prove majority, a political party needs the support of 122 legislators. The anti-BJP camp has 164 legislators who have pledged support to Kumar.
Kumar has managed the government with the help of a simple majority in the House during the past years, but now, he is going to form a government with two-third majority. The RJD has 79 legislators, the JD (U) 45, the Congress19, the Left 16 and the HAM has four. There is an Independent MLA in the House, Sumit Singh, who is close to the BJP, but the JD (U) leaders are in contact with him. On the other hand, the BJP, which till Tuesday morning was the ruling party, became the opposition camp in the evening.
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Kumar visited Raj Bhawan twice on Tuesday. He went there to submit his resignation to Governor Phagu Chauhan in the afternoon and then to stake his claim to form government in the evening. He was accompanied by Tejashwi Yadav and Tejpratap, the two sons of Lalu Prasad Yadav. If all goes well, Kumar will be the chief minister for the sixth time and Tejashwi will be the deputy chief minister for the second time. Tejashwi said the Chacha-Bhatija government would take Bihar to new heights. Kumar left NDA in 2015 and joined hands with Yadav. The JD(U)-RJD combine won the Bihar assembly elections and Kumar became the chief minister. Tejashwi took over as the deputy chief minister and his brother Tejpratap as health minister, but the alliance broke within two and a half years.
Kumar then joined the NDA and became chief minister for the fourth time. Although JD (U) won fewer seats than the BJP, Kumar remained the chief minister.
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Nevertheless, the script of the current political drama was written when the RJD as well as the JD (U) demanded census of Other Backward Classes in Bihar, but the BJP was dragging its feet on the matter. Aside from that, Kumar took the BJP to task on various issues including the Agniveer scheme. The gap between Kumar and the NDA was widening, because of which he did not take part in the NITI Ayog meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. The dispute between Kumar and Modi deepened over giving a ticket to RCP Singh, a Union Minister, for re-election to the Rajya Sabha. While Modi was keen to give a ticket to Singh, Kumar gave a sniff of disapproval. There were allegations that the BJP was trying to break the JD (U) the way it has split the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Kumar seemed to have sniffed at his partner’s clandestine scheme and decided to leave the NDA.
