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Mahagathbandhan 2.0: Nitish, Tejashwi step in
Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday took oath as Bihar’s chief minister for the eighth time in 22 years, completing a dramatic switch from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a clinical operation that marked the second coming for the Mahagathbandhan, or Grand Alliance, with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav also taking oath and set to be appointed the deputy chief minister.
Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday took oath as Bihar’s chief minister for the eighth time in 22 years, completing a dramatic switch from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a clinical operation that marked the second coming for the Mahagathbandhan, or Grand Alliance, with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav also taking oath and set to be appointed the deputy chief minister.
Kumar, 71, has served as CM in alliance with the BJP on five occasions, and with the RJD twice before.
The events of the past three days have been mirrored in the not-so-distant past. During his previous stint as the CM with the Mahagathbandhan, Kumar dumped the Grand Alliance two years into his tenure in 2017 to partner with the BJP and complete the rest of his five-year term as a member of the National Democratic Alliance.
Governor Phagu Chauhan administered the oath of office to the two leaders at a simple ceremony at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday afternoon, attended by former chief minister Rabri Devi, Raj Shri Yadav (Tejashwi’s wife), and other senior JD(U) and RJD leaders, including several former ministers.
Kumar said the new government will announce the names of other members of the cabinet soon.
There was uncertainty over who would retain the home portfolio, a department Kumar has retained in the past, with people familiar with the matter saying that the RJD may get most of the departments previously with the BJP.
The RJD is likely to get 16 berths, the JD(U) 14, the Congress three, and the Hindustan Awam Morcha of former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi one, the people cited above said. The CPI-ML, which has 12 MLAs, in the assembly has decided to support the government from outside.
The Mahagathbandhan has 164 MLAs (the RJD is its largest constituent with 79 seats), and the BJP has 77 in the 243-member Bihar assembly.
Euphoric scenes were witnessed outside the Raj Bhavan, and the residences of Kumar and Yadav, as hundreds of supporters celebrated by beating drums, bursting firecrackers and distributing laddus. This is the second stint as deputy CM for Lalu Prasad’s son Tejashwi, 32. He also held the post from 2015 till mid-2017.
As a massive war of words erupted over Kumar’s decision to switch partners midway, Kumar rubbished the BJP’s claim that the new government will also not last its full term, and said his former ally “will be back where it was after the 2015 assembly polls”, when it could not get even 50 seats in the state assembly. He also said that the BJP should worry about 2024 general elections, while stressing that he has no prime ministerial ambitions.
The BJP did not attend the swearing-in ceremony, and held a protest blaming the JD(U) of betraying the “people’s mandate”. Rajya Sabha MP and former deputy CM Sushil Modi said his party was not invited for the ceremony.
“Even if we had been invited, we would not have liked to witness formation of the government which has been installed by betraying the mandate of people of Bihar, which voted for NDA in the last assembly polls, and is insult to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who stuck to his promise of backing Kumar for another term,” Modi told reporters.
Modi also alleged that Yadav, as the leader of the largest party in the alliance, would behave as “de facto CM”, and will be under pressure to deliver on the promise of one million government jobs that he made during 2020 assembly polls campaign. Later, Sushil Modi also claimed that Kumar wanted to become India’s Vice President, and dumped the BJP after the party failed to accommodate his national ambitions. The JD(U) dismissed these claims.
Mahagathbandhan leaders indicated the alliance will have a common minimum programme to be decided by the alliance partners, and will be a guiding document for the government.
Yadav said all promises made in the elections will be fulfilled. “Our fight has been against unemployment. Our CM felt the pain of the poor and the youth. We will give bumper jobs within one month to poor and youth, it’ll be something so grand that it has never happened before,” he told reporters.
Experts described the coming together of all non-BJP forces as a significant political movement.
“The thing about this government is that all opposition parties have united. This will make the RJD stronger as Tejashwi has to stand to the aspirations of the people and his poll promises; Nitish Kumar, smarting under a BJP onslaught, will change his style of governance. The government will last the remaining term in my view,” said DM Diwakar, former director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies.
