Samrat Choudhary government to seek trust vote in Bihar Assembly on April 24

Samrat Choudhary government to seek trust vote in Bihar Assembly’s April 24 session despite NDA majority; one-day sitting ahead of monsoon session.

The newly formed Samrat Choudhary government will seek a confidence vote during the second session of the 18th Bihar Legislative Assembly on April 24, despite the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s continuing majority, a Vidhan Sabha official said.

Samrat Choudhary government to seek trust vote in Bihar Assembly’s April 24 session despite NDA majority

It will be a one-day sitting before the scheduled monsoon session in July. A notification about the session was issued by the Vidhan Sabha director Rajiv Kumar on Saturday.

On December 1, the inaugural session of the 18th Vidhan Sabha was convened, but no trust vote was sought by the Nitish Kumar government due to the brute majority it enjoyed, with the NDA holding 202 of the 243 seats in the Assembly. The Speaker’s unanimous election also underlined this majority.

However, although the NDA’s arithmetic remains unchanged, the Samrat government will seek a trust vote following the change of guard at the top, in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution.

“The Article 164(2) of the Constitution specifies that the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly. In that spirit, the trust vote will be sought, as it is a new government with a new CM,” said an Assembly official.

The Samrat Cabinet at present has a strength of just three - with two deputy chief ministers - Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav. The expansion of the cabinet is expected in May.

In Bihar, the cabinet can have a maximum of 36 ministers, including CM, but the Nitish cabinet also worked with a truncated strength of 26.

In the Bihar Assembly, BJP is the largest party with 89 members, followed by JD-U (84) and LJP (19). RJD, had emerged as the largest party in 2020, has managed to get just 25 seats to be eligible for the LoP position, while NDA enjoys a brute majority with 202 seats in the 243-member House.