Nitish Kumar was sworn-in as the 32nd chief minister of Bihar on Friday. The Janata Dal-United leader took oath as CM for a second consecutive term, two days after a historic win of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar assembly polls.
'There is also a possibility that Andhra Pradesh may demand a similar package. But as of now, we are only working on a package for Bihar.'
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has convened a meeting of Janata Dal-United MLAs and MPs on Tuesday to discuss the scenario that has emerged following the exit of former national president R C P Singh, party chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan said on Monday.
Often called Chanakya for his political astuteness, engineer-politician Nitish Kumar blended his secularist ideology with pragmatic politics and combined the development plank with innovative social engineering equations in Bihar to bask in glory yet again.
Kartik Kumar, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLC, who became the state's law minister in the new Nitish Kumar government, resigned hours after being moved to a lesser significant Sugarcane Department on Wednesday night.
Nitish also denied that Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesman Shivanand Tiwari would join the JD-U.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
The latest development comes a day after the BJP decided to support Nitish Kumar's human chain for prohibition next week.
The party rank and file seemed bewildered at the sudden turn of events which has taken the spotlight away from the "Har Ghar Tiranga" programme which the BJP was planning to hold with much fanfare.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Tuesday echoed Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate should be a liberal person like former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee acceptable to all sections of society.
Signalling a thaw in the Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party ties, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi accompanied Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the last leg of his Vishwas Yatra to Gaya district.
Kushwaha said Kumar remarks that the JD-U would not join the Modi cabinet reminded him of 'sour grapes'.
A 14-member council of ministers was sworn in Patna by Governor Phagu Chauhan on Monday and the BJP bagged seven berths.
Describes the results as a "vote for change and good governance."
The crowds were stunned into silence for a few seconds, after which they erupted in applause for the 69-year-old leader who has ruled the state for nearly 15 years.
In an embarrassment to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a senior Janata Dal-United Legislator Chhedi Paswan met Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi following which the party suspended him for six years.
With uncertainty prevailing over 'Janata Parivar' constituents contesting the Bihar assembly polls as one party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asked Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to convene a meeting of the merger committee to "clear the air".
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
The deceased has been identified as Saurav Kumar. Another person accompanying him, Munmun Kumar, was injured in the firing, they said.
This is the first time after Nitish Kumar dumped the BJP in August 2022 that violence has broken out across the state, reports M I Khan.
Bihar CM says there's no question of going back on supporting Kovind.
Yadav took to social media and shared video clips and pictures of the deployment of security personnel, including police and rapid action force, with barricades near his house here, a stone's throw away from the Samajwadi Party headquarters.
"I will not contest the coming assembly polls in October-November. There is no need for it as I am a member of legislative council," he said at Janata Dal-United headquarters in Patna.
Amid division in National Democratic Alliance over opposing United Progressive Alliance Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said he favoured a consensus on the issue of candidature for which efforts were on within the Opposition alliance.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday accused the Nitish Kumar government of "avoiding" recommendations to the Centre for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the killing of Ranvir Sena Supremo B ahmeshwar Singh Mukhiya on June 1 in Bhojpur district.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
A visibly happy Nitish Kumar went to the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation on Wednesday even as counting of votes in all 243 assembly constituencies was underway. The Bihar cabinet on Tuesday decided to recommend the dissolution of the state assembly to Governor Debanand Konwar
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, against whom the newly formed National Democratic Alliance government has moved a no-confidence motion, on Wednesday dug in his heels.
"Are they (JD-U) police that we have to answer them?" he shot back to another question that JD-U spokesmen have been regularly saying that Tejashwi Yadav has to come clean in the public domain.
Amid speculations about chance of the Congress going with the Janata Dal-United instead of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday categorically ruled out this possibility and said even a last minute decision on special category status to the state could not pave way for such tie up.
Besides the four ministerial berths, the Congress has also sought the post of Speaker of the state assembly, but Kumar is not keen on giving that, sources said.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
Truckloads of laddoos, hundreds of packets of sweets, and tonnes of flowers have been brought in by his admirers. "Laddoos will be distributed in the afternoon to mark Nitish Kumar's victory," a JD-U leader said. In true Holi style, jubilant JD-U supporters have been playing with colours, bursting firecrackers and distributing sweets since the morning. "It is a red letter day for us," Satish Kumar, an upbeat JD-U leader, told rediff.com
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party lacks courage to apologise to Muslims for their 'mistakes'.
Thousands of Janata Dal-United activists are expected to attend the March 17 rally of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Delhi's Ram Lila Maidan, demanding special-category status for Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has sacked all 11 ministers from the cabinet.
Amidst reports of a possible parting of ways between Janata Dal United and the Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had given a call for a federal front, on Wednesday spoke to her Bihar and Odisha counterparts on the issue.
Kumar, who chose not to react when the 31-year-old Rashtriya Janata Dal leader made a series of personal attacks and allegations in his nearly an hour-long speech, erupted in anger when the latter sought to interject during a statement made by Janata Dal-United leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary.
'Voters from the forward castes voted for JD-U because they feared Laloo Yadav's return, but since that fear is no longer there they may not see the need to vote for Nitish Kumar anymore.'
