Amid serious differences between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP leadership over allotment of only one Cabinet berth, Janata Dal-United (JDU) has decided to opt out of the Narendra Modi Government.
“The offer made by the BJP was not acceptable to us. We are firmly with the NDA, but we will not join the Government,” Nitish said.
Sources said Nitish wanted at least three ministerial berths for his party including two of Cabinet ranks and one of Minister of State.
But the BJP was ready to offer him only one Cabinet berth and one MoS position.
Sources said Nitish was highly unhappy with this offer because as many as five BJP MPs from Bihar were nominated to the Modi Government. They include two Cabinet Ministers — Ravi Shankar Prasad and Giriraj Singh — and three Ministers of State.
“JD(U) won 16 seats, just one less than BJP from Bihar. Then why should we accept such humiliating offer,” said a senior JD(U) leader.
The Bihar Chief Minister did attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his new Council of Ministers at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
BJP had offered one Cabinet berth to the JD(U), and sources said the regional party was also unhappy with the portfolio offered to it.
JD(U) was not a part of the first Modi Government as well even though it allied with the saffron party in 2017.
There was no comment from the BJP over the development.
Sources said that JD(U)’s senior leader and Nitish’s close aide, RCP Singh was to become the lone Cabinet Minister from the party. Nitish decided to keep his party out of the Union Cabinet after a closed-door meeting in New Delhi with senior leaders of his party.
Nitish had met BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday to discuss JD(U) participation in the Union Cabinet.
The JD(U)’s move to seek two Cabinet berths came in the backdrop of the party’s strong performance in the Lok Sabha elections in which it won 16 of the 17 seats that it contested from Bihar.
The BJP and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won all 17 seats and six seats, respectively that they contested, giving the NDA 39 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
RCP Singh is a former Uttar Pradesh cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and hails from Nalanda district of Bihar. He belongs to the same caste as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and is considered close to him. Singh has been associated with Nitish since his stint in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government and was also Nitish’s Principal Secretary in the State Government till he joined politics.