Patna, April 26: The NDA constituents JD(U) and BJP today staged a unity show during filing of nomination of their candidates for the three vacant seats in Bihar Legislative Council after weeks of verbal duel.
The two JD(U) candidates — Manjar Alam, Raj Kishore Kushwaha — and the BJP nominee, Vivek Thakur, filed nominations in the presence of chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, sending a message of unity to the public. The state presidents of both the JD(U) and the BJP — Bashishtha Narayan Singh and Mangal Pandey, respectively — were also present. So were ministers Vijay Choudhary (JD-U) and Nand Kishore Yadav (BJP).
Devesh Thakur, a close associate of Nitish, accompanied the chief minister, his deputy, the two ministers and the candidates to the Assembly secretary’s office for the filing of nomination papers.
Before leaving the Assembly premises, Nitish told reporters: “We have a coalition government. We are working with the co-operation expected in alliances. We will follow the dharma of alliance.”
The message of Nitish would lift the relationship between the alliance partners, at least temporarily.
Before the filing of the nomination papers, the BJP and the JD(U) leaders sat together in the chief minister’s chamber. After filing his nomination papers, Thakur went to Nitish’s chamber to thank him. “Thakur has reasons to thank Nitish because the JD(U) could have bagged all the three seats on its own strength. But we have sacrificed one to the BJP to buy peace at least till the alliance and this government survives,” said a JD(U) MLA .
The deaths of former minister Ramashray Prasad Singh (JD-U), Ramchandra Prasad and Badshah Prasad Azad (both RJD) prompted the vacancies in the Council. In case of voting, all the 243 MLAs are entitled to vote separately for the three seats. In such a scenario, each candidate would require 122 first preference votes to emerge winner.
The JD(U) has 118 MLAs and could easily get that number for all the three seats with the support of the Independents. But the BJP with 91 MLAs would have found it difficult to meet the target.
Under the present circumstances, it is unlikely that any fourth candidate would file nomination and all the three NDA candidates would get elected unopposed.
The JD(U)’s sacrifice of a seat in the Council is likely to end the war of words between the two allies, at least for now.
“It was becoming extremely embarrassing for the government to function amid the verbal duel,” a JD(U) minister said. A BJP minister, however, said the show of unity by chief minister and his deputy does not guarantee the survival of the alliance. “At the best, it is a temporary truce. The problem of the BJP-JD(U) alliance in not in Bihar. It is in Delhi and in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi,” he said.
Hours after the unity show of the two NDA partners, voices of dissent surfaced in the BJP over the selection of Vivek as its candidate.
Former MLC and party spokesperson Ramkishore Singh has faxed a letter to the national president of the party, asking him to withdraw the nomination of Vivek. He claimed that Dr C.P. Thakur and his son Vivek had indulged in indiscipline several times and making Vivek a Council member would amount to rewarding people who are not disciplined.
