Patna, June 17: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today went into a huddle with senior JD(U) leaders, including national president Sharad Yadav, in the presence of four Independent MLAs to put his house in order.
The participation of the four Independent legislators — Pawan Kumar Jaiswal, Som Prakash Singh, Dular Chand Goswami and Vinay Bihari — in the two-hour-long meeting of the JD(U) legislators and MPs at the chief minister’s official residence indicates that they would extend support to Nitish during the trust vote in the Assembly on June 19. More so, because they did not attend the meeting on their own. They were invited to it.
“We all received calls yesterday from the erstwhile NDA chief whip (set to be the JD-U chief whip) in the Assembly, Shravan Kumar. He asked us to visit the official residence of the chief minister to attend the meeting,” said an Independent MLA.
The meeting started at 3pm, in which Nitish shared his feelings with the party MPs and legislators. MLAs and only four leaders were given the opportunity to speak. “It was not possible to allow everyone to speak. So, only four senior leaders spoke on the behalf of legislators and MPs. Shivanand Tiwari represented the Rajya Sabha members, Ram Sunder Das spoke on behalf of the Lok Sabha members, agriculture minister Narendra Singh represented the ministers and state unit president Bashishtha Narayan Singh represented the party workers and legislators,” said the source.
During the meeting at Durbar Hall, Nitish explained to the party legislators and MPs the circumstances under which the JD(U) had to part ways with the BJP. Quoting Nitish, the source present in the meeting said: “The chief minister said we have to prove our mettle on our own now and all of us have to work hard to strengthen the party at the grassroots.
“Nitish said a new programme would be given to us and the duty of the legislators would be to implement it at the grassroots.”
“Nitish said we have to work hard as the JD(U) would be contesting in all the 40 seats in the Lok Sabha polls. The most important work at hand for the JD(U) is to clear the floor test and we will surely do,” he added.
While the alliance was intact, the Nitish government had the support of at least 209 of the 243 MLAs in the Assembly. Following the split with the BJP, the JD(U) would have to ensure all its MLAs are present in the House during the voting. “Winning the confidence motion is the easy part. Ensuring that every MLA of the party is present on a day-to-day basis, especially when the money bill would be passed, would be difficult. Nitishji cannot afford to ignore his MLAs now,” said a senior party leader.
Two suspended JD(U) MPs — Mangani Lal Mandal (Jhanjharpur) and Purnamasi Ram (Gopalganj) — did not attend the meeting. Jehanabad MP Jagdish Sharma was also not present. He is in Delhi now.
