Manjhi may lose Assembly membership

The sword of disqualification from the Assembly hangs on former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and about a dozen MlAs supporting him if they defy the three line whip of the JD(U) during the trust motion to be moved by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday. The CM will prove his majority soon after Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi will address a joint Session of the two Houses of legislature. This is unparallel in the Indian parliamentary history that the joint session of the legislature is called in a span of only 19 days. Originally the session had been called on February 20 to give chance to then Chief Minister Manjhi to prove his majority but instead of facing the legislature he preferred to resign which resulted into House being declared sine die.

The JD(U) has issued whip to all its 110 MlAs including Manjhi, who had earlier expelled from the party and Assembly Speaker Udai Narain Chaudhary recognised him as unattached member.

The 110 strength of the ruling party also included about a dozen MlAs, some of them been Ministers in the Manjhi Cabinet, who had been suspended from the party. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shrawan Kumar, who is also JD(U)’s chief whip, said, “Whip has been issued to all the 110 MlAs of the party, including Manjhi. He is an unattached member and has been allotted separate seat in the Assembly but he is still a member of the JD(U) as the party has not terminated his membership so he has to obey the whip like other members.”

Assembly Speaker Chaudhary in an informal talk on Tuesday said Manjhi is an unattached member which means he is a member without any party affiliation but the whip will be applicable on him. He hinted that Manjhi might lose his membership if found defying the whip. Others who face danger of losing membership of the Assembly include Brishen Patel, Shahid Ali Khan and Nitish Mishra (all former Ministers) and about ten other MlAs. Another four former Ministers — Narendra Singh, Bhim Singh, Samrat Chaudhry and Mahachandra Prasad Singh — are members of legislative Council and one more former Minister Vinay Bihari is Independent and the whip will not be applicable on them.

There are eight other JD(U) MlAs who are Manjhi supporters but they are banned from entering the Assembly premises since their membership was terminated by the Speaker in December last even though the Patna High  Court quashed the termination order but the matter is  pending before a revision Bench of the court. Manjhi has still not gave up the hope and claimed if voting on confidence motion is held secretly, Nitish would lose. He also appealed to RJD supremo lalu Prasad to withdraw support from Nitish and vote against the motion. “If he wants to maintain his image of pro-poor he should not support of Nitish who scrapped all my pro-poor decisions in a single stroke,” said Manjhi.

In the 243 members Bihar Assembly, JD(U) has 111 members, including the Speaker and Manjhi, the RJD has 24, the Congress has five and CPI one, while the BJP has a strength of 87 and five are Independent members. Since there are ten vacancies the present strength of the Assembly is 233. Nitish would require support of 117 members, if there is no abstention, to prove his majority.

During the three hours debate on the trust motion, the BJP is expected to mount attack on the JD(U) Government. leader of Opposition Nand Kishore Yadav said, “We will raise people oriented issues like deteriorating law and order condition and slow pace or work during the 22 months of government, including nine months of Manjhi.” Former CM Manjhi is also expected to go hammer and tongs against Nitish provided he is given opportunity to speak. Abdul Bari Siddiqui, the floor leader of RJD which is supporting Nitish, said, “We will support the government where it will be needed but not compromise on public issues.”