Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, November 15
The ruling alliance in Bihar has seen a split, literally, not among the allies as earlier predicted but the leadership that has been in the helm of affairs for last 13 years.
The Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi alliance was finally cracked Sunday evening when BJP legislature party (consisting of MLAs and MLCs) elected a comparatively younger Tarkishore Prasad–BJP MLA from Katihar—as its leader. He would replace Sushil Modi.
Modi himself removed his status (deputy chief minister) from his official website and twitter account and admitted he was now a simple worker (Karkyakarta) of the BJP. “No one can deprive me of the status of Karyakarta”, he commented, indicating he was not happy with the decision of the party leadership.
He claimed the Sangh Pariwar and BJP had given enough for him, which many others did not get.
In presence of the two central observers of the party-former chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the fourth term MLA from Seemanchal constitutency of Katihar was unanimously elected BJP legislature party leader and Ms Renu Devi, MLA from Bettiah in West Champaran as deputy leader. They would be the two deputy chief ministers, indicated Prasad himself as he claimed women had voted overwhelmingly to the BJP.
None of the observers went to BJP office as scheduled earlier and called newly elected MLAs. They went to State Guest House and CM House before returning to New Delhi. Meanwhile, the two names of leader and deputy leader were announced. Party sources said there was a section of BJP legislators who were hostile to continuance of Sushil Modi as their leader and had told their views to the BJP general secretary, Bhupinder Yadav.
Sushil Modi was summoned to New Delhi by the BJP president, J P Nadda on Friday evening and he returned yesterday. Modi himself proposed the name of Tarkishore Prasad as his replacement, he claimed.
After the BJP legislature party meeting, the two observers went to the chief minister house, where JDU, VIP and HAM(S) legislators were present. In the joint meeting, Nitish Kumar was re-elected NDA legislature party leader.
While the Chief Minister, VIP president Mukesh Sahni, HAM president Jeetan Ram manjhi, BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal went to Raj Bhawan to stake claim for formation of the new ministry. Sushil Modi accompanied with Rajnath Singh went to state Guest house and later announced he was now not a leader of the BJP lehgislators but a common worker.
The new BJP legislature party leader, Tarkishore Prasad is from Vaishya (Baniya) (OBC in Bihar) community, deputy leader Ms Renu Devi is from Noniya (extremely backward caste)
Meanwhile, Governor Phagu Chauhan has invited Nitish Kumar to take oath as chief minister on Monday at 4.30 pm. After meeting Governor, Nitish said the name of the deputy chief minister was still undecided.
It is learnt, 35 ministers, 13 from JDU and 22 from BJP may be sworn in. Thirteen ministers of present Nitish Kumar cabinet will also take oath. They included PWD minister, Nand Kishore Yadav, health minister Mangal Pandey, Agriculture minister Prem Kumar from BJP, Ashok Kumar Chaudhury, Sanjay Kumar Jha, Neeraj Kumar from JDU, Santosh Manjhi from HAM(S) and Mukesh Sahni of VIP.
Among the newly elected, former DG of police Sunil Kumar, elected from Bhorey (SC) constitutency, Ms Shalini Mishra elected from Motihari, international shooter Ms Shreyashi Singh, elected from Jamui may also take oath.
Sources close to Sushil Modi said in the evening, he may be sent to New Delhi through Rajya Sabha. There is a vacancy in Rajya Sabha from Bihar following death of Ram Vilas Paswan who died last month. He was elected on BJP support. They hoped Sushil Modi may be inducted into the union cabinet in view of his 13 years experience as chairman of the council of ministers for GST. He had been in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha earlier.
