“Mahagathbandhan” Ministry Installed in Office in Bihar again with Nitish Kumar as Chief

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 10: The “Mahagathbandhan” (Grand Alliance) ministry was installed in the office in Bihar on Wednesday with Nitish Kumar taking oath as the chief minister for the eighth time and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Tejashwi Yadav as his deputy for the second time at a simple ceremony in the Raj-Bhavan in Patna.

The Governor Phagu Chouhan administered the oath to Kumar and Yadav, the only two to be sworn-in on Wednesday with the rest of the minister to take oath “in a day or two.” Leaders of all seven Mahagathbandhan parties were present during the oath-taking ceremony along with the family members of Yadav.

Earlier in 2015, both had taken oath together for the same. Though two years after in 2017, Kumar played a turncoat and had joined hands with the BJP storming out of the “Mahagathbandhan” accusing the Yadav siblings of corruption “unbearable” to him.

Soon after taking oath, Kumar, who continued in the chair but with changed partners, expressed doubts if his erstwhile partner, the BJP would return to power at the centre after the 2024 elections. Taking a shot at the prime minister Narendra Modi, with whom Kumar always had a love-hate relationship, he asked “I am not sure if those who won in 2014, will also win in 2024.”

Though Nitish Kumar repeatedly spoke of “working towards Opposition unity” to unseat the BJP at the Centre, he told reporters that he was “not a contender for anything”, when asked if he wants to be PM candidate. “The question to ask is, if the person who came in 2014 will win in 2024,” he said. Elections in Bihar are due now only in 2025, a year after the Lok Sabha contest.

Senior Bihar BJP leader and his earlier deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi giving reasons for Kumar’s dissatisfaction with his party denied that the BJP had any plans to split the JD(U) as accused. He also denied that the BJP had played any role in the split in the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra as alleged by Kumar.

Instead, Modi claimed, Kumar despite his repeated assertions of not holding any national ambitions, wanted to be the NDA’s presidential or vice-presidential candidate but on being turned down by the BJP that he decided to dump his alliance partner and form a new government with the RJD.

Sushil Modi claimed that some senior leaders of the JD(U) had come to him with the suggestion that Kumar be made the vice-president of India which would pave the way for his taking over as the chief minister of Bihar. But Kumar refuted the claim. “They are just making up stories,” the JD(U) chief said responding to Modi’s claim.

But Sushil Modi was confident that the Grand Alliance government would not last till the state Assembly elections in 2025. “Kumar is certain to again ditch the RJD,” he predicted.

The first version of the JDU-RJD-Congress tie-up, called the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ or Grand Alliance, won power in 2015. Nitish Kumar had broken up with the BJP two years before that — ending a two-decade relationship — and resigned as chief minister. He had problems with Narendra Modi’s past — particularly the 2002 Gujarat riots — and left the NDA after he became the PM face.

But he made up with PM Modi’s party in 2017, left the Grand Alliance and took a fresh oath. He stuck with the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections; and then they together won the 2020 Bihar polls.

On Wednesday after taking oath Kumar reiterated that he did not want to be Chief Minister after the 2020 win with the BJP. “Ask people in the party (JDU), what they have been reduced to. I did not want to become CM… but I was put under pressure. Then you see what happened. I have not even spoken to you (journalists) in two months.”

He pointed towards the drop in JDU’s numbers. “How many seats did we win in 2015? And then we went with the same people (BJP) and look at what we have been reduced to.” Besides those in the JDU, Tejashwi Yadav too has said the BJP “usurp its partners”.

In 2015, Nitish Kumar’s JDU had won 71 seats — part of the Grand Alliance’s 170 — in a House of 243. The RJD was the largest party with 80, but he became chief minister as leader of the pact. At present, the JDU has 45 seats. The BJP, which has 77, made him chief minister in 2020 despite his lower numbers — but with two deputies from the BJP stable. The reason for walking out of the alliance, the JD(U) sources said, was that Kumar and the party were spooked in the latest by the Maharashtra coup, in which the BJP backed a split in the Shiv Sena to return to power.

On his fate after yet another flip, Nitish Kumar today said, “Whether I will stay or not… let people say what they have to say.” After staking claim yesterday, he said he “never allowed corruption” and “we want brotherhood in society”. Standing next to him, Tejashwi Yadav accused the BJP of dividing people along communal lines: “We are socialists. All of us want that the BJP’s agenda shouldn’t be implemented in Bihar.” Yadav, who touched Kumar’s feet after taking the oath also commented, “Nitishji is the most experienced chief minister in the country now.”

Kumar, when asked about the difference between the former BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee under whom he was a minister, and the current PM, said, “Vajpayee had given us so much of love, warmth and respect that we cannot ever forget but the situation has quite changed now”.

Soon after taking oath as deputy chief minister, there would be hundreds of jobs on offer for poor and youth within a month. Stating that his fight had been against unemployment, Yadav said the job offers would be grand to a never-before-seen level. “Bihar did what the country needs to do. We’ve shown them a way. Our fight has been against unemployment. Our CM felt the pain of the poor and youth. We’ll give bumper jobs within one month to the poor and youth. It will be something so grand that it has never happened before,” the newly appointed deputy chief minister said.

He said the Mahagathbandhan is so strong that the BJP would be the only one left as Opposition in the Assembly. “A difficult decision taken by CM Nitish Kumar is a decision which was needed (to be taken). Communal tensions were being spread by BJP, they were trying to kill regional parties,” he further said.

Meanwhile, BJP leaders sat on dharna at BJP headquarters on Wednesday to condemn Nitish Kumar’s “betrayal”. “BJP made him Chief Minister five times but he (Mr Kumar) betrayed us. The people of Bihar will give him a befitting reply for his conduct in time to come,” Sushil Modi said.