Nitish Kumar sails through trust vote, attacks RJD, Congress

The NDA government, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, comfortably sailed through a trust vote in the Bihar Assembly with 131 MLAs, including 52 from his new ally BJP, voting for him. In the 243-member House, four MLAs could not vote, reducing the effective strength of the Assembly to 239 and the majority mark to 120.

Nitish attacked his partner-turned-Opposition RJD and said secularism was an ideology and not a cover-up for corruption. He also said power was not for 'raj bhog', but it was to serve the people.

NDA's votes included JD-U's 70, BJP's 52, two each of LJP and RLSP, HAM-S's one and four of Independent legislators. The Opposition could manage only 108 votes, of which 79 were of RJD, 26 of Congress and three of CPI (ML) lawmakers.

The absentees included BJP's Anand Shankar Pandey, who is unwell, RJD's Raj Ballabh Yadav who is in jail on rape charges and Congress' Sudarshan, who could not reach the lobby before closing of the doors. Speaker Vijay Choudhary (JD-U) did not have to vote.

The trust vote was necessitated after the JD-U chief on Wednesday resigned as head of the Grand Alliance government also comprising the RJD and the Congress. He joined hands with the BJP and was sworn in as the CM of the NDA government in Bihar on Thursday, resulting in a dramatic change of government in the state within 16 hours.

The Speaker cited technicalities and rejected the RJD's demand of voting through secret ballot. Choudhary twice tried to conduct voting through voice vote, but the "ayes" and "nos" could not be differentiated. He then opted for a lobby division of votes. There was no cross-voting. In a surprise move, however, the live telecast of the Assembly proceedings was stopped by authorities on Friday.

Much before the commencement of the House proceedings, the RJD legislators staged protests at the Assembly gate, raising slogans of "Nitish Kumar hai hai" and held placards reading "Aisa koi saga nahi, jisko Nitish ne thaga nahi".

The occupants of the Treasury and Opposition benches had swapped places and attacked each other in speeches. The RJD, which for the last 20 months had been on the government's side, was in attacking mode.

Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who was the deputy CM of the state till two days ago, led the charge accusing Nitish of planning the split for the last nine months.

"Those who talked of secularism have now sided with the RSS and the BJP. From Hey Ram, you've switched to Jai Shri Ram," said Tejashwi, in his 45-minute speech.

In response, Nitish in his 12-minute rebut said he adhered to the coalition dharma despite hearing a lot of things against him in the last few months. Lashing out at the Congress, he said, "You were not going to get over 15 seats, but I gave you 40."

Nitish cut short his speech keeping in mind that it was time for Friday Namaaz prayers of the Muslim legislators present there. He, however, said he will give a point-wise reply to each and every accusation made against him, at the opportune time.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi thanked the RJD for facilitating the BJP's return to power after four years by not letting corruption-tainted Tejashwi resign. The RJD's stand on Tejashwi is said to have triggered Nitish's resignation. "The Mahagathbandhan was an unnatural alliance that died naturally. Now we will work for the development of Bihar," he said. Both Nitish and his deputy are members of the Bihar legislative council and, hence, did not vote.