© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
More than two weeks after he joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and took oath as Bihar Chief Minister for a ninth time, Nitish Kumar will face a floor test in the Bihar Assembly on Monday.
According to the Assembly schedule, the Budget session will commence with Governor R V Arlekar’s address to both Houses of the legislature. This will be followed by the Assembly taking up the no-confidence motion against Speaker Awadh Bihari Choudhary. Choudhary, who is from the RJD, has refused to step down despite calls from the BJP and the JD(U) and may resign before the motion is introduced. The RJD has dared Nitish to prove his majority before the no-confidence motion against the Speaker is taken up.
As things stand now, the NDA claims to have the support of 128 MLAs, six more than the halfway mark of 122 in the 243-member Assembly. The BJP has 78 MLAs, the JD(U) 45, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) four, and one Independent. The Mahagathbandhan comprising the RJD, Congress, CPI(ML) Liberation, CPI and CPI(M) has 114 MLAs on its side. The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has one MLA.
On Sunday, Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) faced some anxious moments as five of its MLAs skipped a meeting of the legislature party while alarm bells rang among Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) legislators — who were camping at the house of former Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav along with Left MLAs — after one of them “went missing” for a brief period. Meanwhile, the legislators of the BJP and the Congress, sequestered in Bodh Gaya and Hyderabad respectively, returned to Patna in the evening.
State Parliamentary Affairs minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary who convened a meeting of the JD(U) legislature party downplayed the absence of “two or three MLAs”, attributing it to “unavoidable circumstances about which they had given prior information”. He emphasised that the absentees would be present in the Assembly on Monday. “We in the NDA have a total strength of 128 MLAs … we are comfortably placed. All our MLAs will be present inside the House where a no-confidence motion against the Speaker will precede the trust vote,” he said.
JD(U) national spokesperson Rajib Ranjan urged the media not to read too much into the MLAs missing the meeting. “They could not attend Sunday’s meeting due to some personal engagements. We will prove our majority but will remove Speaker Choudhary before that. This will answer all doubts of the Opposition,” he said.
Meanwhile, late on Sunday evening, the Pataliputra Police visited Tejashwi Yadav’s official residence after former party MP Anand Mohan’s son Anshuman Anand complained that his younger brother and Sheohar MLA Chetan Anand had gone missing. Chetan, who eventually arrived at Yadav’s residence, said he had come there voluntarily and the missing person complaint did not stand.
An RJD insider alleged it was the JD(U)’s tactic to divert attention from their MLAs skipping the meeting. The RJD leader, however, did not rule out the possibility of Chetan rebelling, citing his father’s growing proximity to Nitish and the former MP’s desire to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Sheohar.
BJP spokesperson Santosh Pathak said the Opposition was “nervous” while the former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi reiterated that the four MLAs of his party HAM(S) would support the NDA.
— With PTI inputs
