Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar took oath as the Bihar Chief Minister on January 29 for a record ninth time to form a new government with the BJP, which he had dumped less than 18 months ago. This is also the third time since the 2020 assembly polls that Kumar has been sworn in as the Chief Minister.
BJP national president JP Nadda was also present at the Raj Bhavan in Patna to attend the oath ceremony of the new government.
Earlier in the day,
JD(U) chief Kumar tendered his resignation to Governor Rajendra Arlekar and announced his party’s exit from the 28-party Opposition’s I.N.D.I.A bloc. Talking to reporters after submitting his resignation, Kumar had said as things were not going well in the mahagathbandhan in the state, he submitted his resignation to the Governor. “The government that was in place now comes to an end. I have let it go".
At the state BJP office, party MLAs unanimously accepted a proposal "to support the JD(U) and party leaders Samrat Choudhary and former Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who were named as leader and deputy leader, respectively, of the legislature party, accompanied Kumar to Raj Bhavan to stake claim.
While the Jharkhand unit of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) labelled JD(U) president Nitish Kumar an opportunist, Union Minister and BJP MP Giriraj Singh thanked him for the move as he was worried a jungle raj may be established in Bihar.
RJD Supremo Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav was the Deputy CM in the outgoing government and his Singapore-based elder sister Rohini Acharya came out with a flurry of posts on X, lampooning the JD(U) president whom she did not mention by name. Tejashwi's elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav was also a cabinet minister.
Tejashwi Yadav, on the other hand, said, JDU as a party would end in 2024.
The RJD, despite having the largest number of 79 MLAs in Bihar assembly, including Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, who is the Speaker, seemed unwilling to stake claim.
