Nitish Kumar elected as new JD(U) legislature party leader in Bihar

The meeting, which was dubbed by defiant Manjhi as “unauthorised”, was attended by 97 out of 111 JD(U) MLAs and 37 out of a total of 41 members of the Legislative Council, party sources said.

Earlier in the day, Manjhi had proposed the dissolution of the state Assembly at a cabinet meeting. He has also called a meeting of the Legislature Party in the capacity of being leader of the House on February 20.

Read: BJP wants fresh elections, but open to supporting Manjhi

The election of Nitish paves the way for the former chief minister to take over the mantle again by replacing Manjhi whom he had handpicked to become the chief minister after he had resigned.

Shrawan Kumar said Kumar had been asked to plan further action.

State JD(U) President Basistha Narayan Singh and JD(U) general secretary K C Tyagi were also present at the meeting.

The election of Kumar as the new leader of the party in the House comes nearly eight months after he resigned as CM in May, 2014 in the wake of the party’s poor performance in the general election. He had handpicked Jitan Ram Manjhi to succeed him.

Later, Manjhi rebelled against him.

Manjhi and seven ministers who had sided with him in the Cabinet meeting were absent along with some other MLAs and MLCs.