Patna, Feb. 7: The day broke with high-voltage drama unfolding on the state's political horizon and ended with the theatrics still continuing.
Hectic sessions of "rapprochement" in the morning between the warring camps of Jitan Ram Manjhi and Nitish Kumar ended in fiasco.
Manjhi then secured the "authority" from his cabinet to recommend the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly. The JDU countered Manjhi by dropping him as its legislature party leader and replacing him with Nitish.
However, instead of using his "authority" to recommend the dissolution of the House, Manjhi instead recommended the dismissal of 15 more ministers in addition to the two sacked last night - P.K. Shahi and Lallan Singh.
The chief minister left in the evening for a scheduled trip to New Delhi for the Niti Aayog meeting tomorrow.
The JDU, in retaliation, withdrew 20 ministers from the Manjhi cabinet. All these ministers sent in their resignations to the Raj Bhavan around 8.30pm.
The recommendation for the dissolution of the 243-member lower House earned the support of Manjhi and seven of his ministers. As many as 21 ministers present at the cabinet meet opposed the move and walked out. Experts said it required the presence of the CM and one more minister to constitute the "quorum" for the move.
Subsequently, as many as 98 of the JDU's 111 MLAs and 38 of the JDU's 41 MLCs gathered on the call of national president Sharad Yadav to unanimously elect Nitish as their leader to replace Manjhi. Sharad has sent a letter to Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, apprising him about the support of the 130 MLAs (drawn from RJD, Congress, CPI and Independents).
"We have also faxed the letter of support from our allies, including RJD boss Lalu Prasad, the Congress leadership, CPI's D. Raja and Independents," JDU spokesman K.C. Tyagi said. "We will make our representation to the President too."
Nitish thanked his legislators for their support. "I am in command of my party now. The party will work among the people for success in the forthcoming Assembly elections. We will go to the people, present our record of governance and seek their support."
The focus has now shifted on the governor. The JDU leadership said it had spoken to Tripathi, the Bengal governor who holds additional charge of Bihar, in Calcutta. "The governor has assured us he would be here by tomorrow evening to consider our representation," Tyagi said.
Tripathi is scheduled to be in Patna on Monday, but a source in the Calcutta Raj Bhavan said he might travel tomorrow itself given the "exigencies of the situation in Patna".
Sharad said the governor had to follow the "spirit of democracy". "Elected MLAs should decide who should lead them in the House. There is no way the governor can ignore the JDU's claim," he said.
Tripathi today summoned his principal secretary in Patna, Brijesh Mehrotra, to Calcutta to be briefed about the Bihar developments.
A source in Patna Raj Bhavan said Tripathi had accepted the recommendation of Manjhi to sack Shahi and Lallan Singh. Tripathi appeared to confirm this as well. "I have received the complaint. Necessary action will be taken against them (the two ministers)," Tripathi said on the sidelines of a function in Calcutta.
Legal eagles said the JDU legislature party meeting was legitimate. Justice Ajit Kumar Sinha, retired judge of Jharkhand High Court, said: "There is no statutory or constitutional embargo on the legislature party being convened by the party president or any other office-bearer."
The developments preceded a high-decibel drama with Manjhi announcing an emergency meeting of his cabinet at 2pm, two hours ahead of the JDU legislature party meet.
However, Manjhi and some of his cabinet colleagues, including Narendra Singh and Brishen Patel, entered Nitish's house around 12.25pm. They locked themselves in parleys with Nitish and his aides for nearly one-and-a-half hours, leading many to believe that the warring leaders might arrive at a "rapprochement". But Manjhi stuck to his guns of not quitting as chief minister, leading to the collapse of the talks.
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