With the political temperature simmering everyday, the Bihar BJP on Tuesday claimed that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was running a minority Government which would fail to sustain voting on any Bill in the State Assembly. Recently one of JD(U) MlAs and Minister in the Nitish Cabinet had left the party and from the membership of the Assembly as well while other one died of cardiac arrest.
The JD(U) had 118 MlAs in the State Assembly of total 243 members and after parting its ways from the BJP the Nitish Kumar Government has been surviving on the support of four Independent MlAs and four Congress MlAs from outside. But, “as per the letter of support given to the Governor, the Nitish Kumar Government enjoyed the support of only four Independent MlAs whereas the Congress had supported them in the rust motion,” said senior State BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
Recently, said Modi, one of the JD(U) MlAs and Cabinet colleague of Kumar Praveen Amanullah had resigned not only from the Cabinet but also from the primary membership of the party and State Assembly membership while another JD(U) MlA from Maharjganj Damodar Singh died. Both, these incidents reduced the strength of JD(U) to 116 with support of four Independent MlAs.
“Now against the required strength of 122, the Nitish Government has support of only 120 MlAs in the State Assembly making it a minority Government,” Modi said emphatically. The senior State BJP leader also added that the four Congress MlAs and a lone CPI member have not given any letter of support to the Governor and just voted in favour of the trust motion moved by Kumar after his party parted ways BJP on June 16 last year.
“The Nitish Kumar Government is short of numbers and cannot sustain voting on any Bill in the state legislature", Modi said. Shushil Modi is also leader of Opposition in the State legislative council. Meanwhile amidst all these political upheavals, the Budget Session of the Bihar Assembly and legislative Council is scheduled to start from February 14. While taking a dig at Nitish Kumar’s effort to forge a non-BJP and non-Congress Federal Front, his former Deputy in the Cabinet Sushil Modi said that the proposed alliance or front was full of contradictions.