Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s government wins Floor test

VIKAS VERMA
PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won a motion of confidence for his coalition government with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Bihar Assembly. Kumar’s coalition government won after 129 MLAs supported the resolution. Soon after the announcement of the result, the opposition walked out from the State Assembly.
The need for a trust vote arose after Nitish Kumar resigned as CM and dumped the Congress-led Mahagathbandhan alliance. As he took oath as the CM of Bihar for the ninth-time after joining hands with the BJP-led NDA alliance, he required to need a trust vote in the assembly.Currently, the BJP has 77 MLAs, while the JDU has 44 in the 243-member House. Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM, which has 4 MLAs, is also part of the NDA.
The Speaker announced the results as opposition leaders, including those from Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), walked out of the state assembly just ahead of the trust vote. The floor test was held for the Nitish Kumar-led government to prove that it had support of the majority of the MLAs in the assembly. Why Nitish Kumar win the trust vote with the support of 129 MLAs when 125 MLAs had voted in favour of the resolution brought by the JDU-BJP alliance against the Speaker earlier? Did cross-voting happen there?
8 MLAs keep NDA alliance on the edge
According to reports, as many as eight MLAs from the NDA and the RJD kept the initial hours of the Bihar assembly session suspenseful. Three RJD MLAs Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi and Prahlad Yadav were seen sitting on the treasury benches in a show of support for Nitish Kumar in the Bihar Assembly. This came as a big blow to Tejashwi Yadav’s and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD.
Meanwhile, sources told that five MLAs of the NDA including three from the BJP and two from the JD(U) were “off the radar” during the assembly session. After winning the floor test, Nitish Kumar slammed his former deputy alleging that the RJD indulged in corrupt practices during the party’s rule in the state, and the new NDA-led government will initiate a probe into it. “There was no law and order. The RJD indulged in corrupt practices during its rule (before 2005)… I will get these probed,” he said.
( With Inputs from media )