Manjhi, Nitish fight for CM's post, plunge Bihar into political turmoil - Times of India

PATNA: Bihar seems headed for a constitutional crisis with a ruling Janata Dal (U) legislature party meeting on Saturday electing former chief minister Nitish Kumar as its new leader in place of chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. Manjhi, however, remained defiant and recommended sacking of 15 more Nitish loyalists from his cabinet amid reports that he has also made up his mind to write to governor Keshari Nath Tripathi for the dissolution of the state assembly.

The fate of Manjhi and Nitish now depends much on the way the Raj Bhawan chooses to react to the political turmoil facing the state. If the fact that the governor accepted the CM's recommendation on Friday to sack two pro-Nitish ministers ignoring the pleas of JD (U) president Sharad Yadav is anything to go by, it won't be a smooth sailing for Nitish to stage a comeback.

Altogether 97 of the JD (U)'s 111 MLAs and 39 of its 41 MLCs attended the legislature party meeting called by party president Sharad Yadav. Nitish also enjoys the support of 24 RJD, 5 Congress and one CPI MLAs in the 243-member assembly which has currently 10 vacancies.

Though Manjhi wrote to the governor describing the legislature party meeting as "unconstitutional" since only a CM can convene such a meeting, Nitish said he would stake claim to form the government. "If need be, we will parade our MLAs before the governor," he said and added Sharad has already informed the governor about the developments and asked the party MLAs to stay in the state capital.

JD (U) spokesman Ajay Alok said the 21 ministers who opposed the proposal for dissolution of state assembly at the cabinet meeting have resigned. Seven ministers - Bhim Singh, Mahachandra Prasad Singh, Narendra Singh, Brishen Patel, Nitish Mishra, Samrat Chaudhary and Vinay Bihari - supported the proposal to dissolve the assembly.

Narendra, who along with Bhim left for Delhi on Saturday, said the Manjhi government would not hesitate to take the support to 87 BJP MLAs to prove majority on the floor of the house.

BJP legislature party leader Sushil Kumar Modi is also in Delhi to apprise the party's central leadership of emerging political situations in Bihar. "Our options are open, but we would like fresh election in Bihar," Modi said.

Efforts were made earlier in the day to evolve a face-saving formula when Narendra called on Nitish. Manjhi also came to Nitish's residence and they along with Sharad discussed the issues at stake for over one hour.

Manjhi reportedly pleaded to Sharad and Nitish to let him continue as the CM and promised them to function now onward on Nitish's advice. The talks apparently failed and the CM returned to his residence where he had called a cabinet meeting at 2pm.

The cabinet meet ended as 21 ministers walked out of it after opposing a proposal authorising CM Manjhi to recommend the dissolution of the assembly.

http://ift.tt/1mnDau8 Yadav,Nitish Kumar,Jitan Ram Manjhi,Janata Dal (U),Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi

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