Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal United (JDU), who formed a grand alliance with others after leaving the BJP, has returned to the post of Chief Minister of Bihar. He took oath at 2 pm local time on Wednesday.
With this, Nitish became the chief minister of the eastern state of India for the eighth time. Tejashwi Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was also sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister along with Nitish. However, the Indian media did not report the oath-taking of anyone except two.
After the second meeting with the Governor of Bihar on Tuesday, Nitish said, ‘He has the support of 164 MLAs from seven parties and one independent.
Earlier, in the first meeting on Tuesday, Nitish along with his party JD(U) resigned from the post of Chief Minister of the BJP coalition government. After some time he went to the Governor along with Tejashwi Yadav and some other party leaders. There he asked to invite ‘Mahagaantbandhan’ of 7 parties including Congress, RJD, Janata Dal United to form the government.
The support of only 121 MLAs is required for a majority out of the total 242 seats in the Bihar Assembly.
The state currently has 77 MLAs from BJP, 19 from Congress, 79 from RJD, 44 from Nitish’s Janata Dal (JDU) and 12 from CPIML.
Nitish, who is on the post of chief minister with the support of BJP, said on Tuesday morning that he came to know that BJP is trying to create division in his party during the meeting with the legislators. At the same time, Tejashwi Yadav also held a meeting with Rashtriya Janata Dal MLAs. It was decided there that if Nitish wants to leave the BJP and form a new government in Bihar, the RJD will support it.