Back with BJP, Nitish Kumar to face floor test today, oust Speaker

More than two weeks after he joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and took oath as Bihar Chief Minister for a ninth time, Nitish Kumar will face a floor test in the Bihar Assembly on Monday.

According to the Assembly schedule, the Budget session will commence with Governor R V Arlekar’s address to both Houses of the legislature. This will be followed by the Assembly taking up the no-confidence motion against Speaker Awadh Bihari Choudhary. Choudhary, who is from the RJD, has refused to step down despite calls from the BJP and the JD(U) and may resign before the motion is introduced. The RJD has dared Nitish to prove his majority before the no-confidence motion against the Speaker is taken up.

As things stand now, the NDA claims to have the support of 128 MLAs, six more than the halfway mark of 122 in the 243-member Assembly. The BJP has 78 MLAs, the JD(U) 45, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) four, and one Independent. The Mahagathbandhan comprising the RJD, Congress, CPI(ML) Liberation, CPI and CPI(M) has 114 MLAs on its side. The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has one MLA.

On Sunday, Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) faced some anxious moments as five of its MLAs skipped a meeting of the legislature party while alarm bells rang among Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) legislators — who were camping at the house of former Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav along with Left MLAs — after one of them “went missing” for a brief period. Meanwhile, the legislators of the BJP and the Congress, sequestered in Bodh Gaya and Hyderabad respectively, returned to Patna in the evening.

State Parliamentary Affairs minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary who convened a meeting of the JD(U) legislature party downplayed the absence of “two or three MLAs”,