Nitish Kumar to take oath as CM of Grand Alliance tomorrow, Tejashwi Yadav as deputy

He will take oath as Chief Minister of Bihar at 2 pm on Wednesday. 

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Tejashwi Yadav will be the deputy chief minister of the new government. The assignment of all ministries will be Nitish Kumar's prerogative while the Speaker will be selected from Tejashwi Yadav's party, RJD.

"Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) of seven parties, one Independent will work closely. We have 164 MLAs, who have all signed the letter of support," Nitish Kumar said after his second meeting with Governor Phagu Chauhan on Tuesday.

In the first one, he resigned as Chief Minister of the government which was in alliance with the BJP.

Less than an hour later, he returned to the Governor, accompanied by Tejashwi Yadav and other Opposition leaders, to state that they should be invited to form the next government based on their combined strength.

"I have resigned, I have informed all my MLAs," said Kumar after his first session with the Governor.

He said the decision to split from the BJP, for the second time in six years, was based on the feedback he received this morning at an interaction with his party's legislators.

It is being claimed that all MPs and legislators had unanimously supported the decision to snap ties with BJP and walk away from NDA.

JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh had told media persons before the meeting that there would be discussions in the wake of the RCP episode.

Even as his party was meeting, Tejashwi Yadav, age 32, held a parallel session with his MLAs, where it was agreed that they would support Nitish Kumar in a new government.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit president Sanjay Jaiswal on Tuesday accused him of having "backstabbed" the saffron outfit as well as the people's mandate of 2020.

Nitish Kumar along with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav coming out after meeting with Governor, in Patna on Tuesday / UNI.

"Nitish Kumar has back-stabbed both BJP as well as the people of Bihar," Sanjay Jaiswal said.

Jaiswal said that the people of this state will never "forgive and forget" what Kumar has done and teach him a lesson in the future.

He said the BJP - keeping the promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Amit Shah during the 2020 Assembly Elections - made Nitish Kumar Chief Minister even after his party JD(U) bagged only 43 seats as against BJP's 74.

Nitish Kumar had snapped ties with the BJP earlier in 2013 when the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was declared as the saffron outfit's PM candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Modi became the Prime Minister after the BJP emerged victorious along with its allies in the elections under his leadership.

With the JD(U) performing poorly, Kumar resigned as Chief Minister taking "moral responsibility" for his party's pathetic show, and Jitan Ram Manjhi took over.

However, he returned as Chief Minister on February 22, 2015, and contested the state assembly elections in October-November the same year by forming a Grand Alliance with RJD, Congress some other parties. The Grand Alliance emerged victorious under Kumar's leadership, and he became the Chief Minister again.

But, Kumar did another u-turn less than 20 months later, as he deserted the Grand Alliance and rejoined hands with the BJP to form the NDA government.

Things had never exactly been hunky-dory between the BJP and the JDU ever since the NDA's victory in the state assembly polls towards the end of 2020. The so-called "Chirag model", followed by the spat between the Chief Minister and Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha - a BJP MLA - furthered embittered ties between the two parties. The RCP episode only proved to be the last nail in the coffin.