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Bihar : Renewed efforts to form a popular government |
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Major political parties in Bihar have renewed their efforts to form a popular non-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Government. But the question whether to seek BJP’s support from outside for the proposed government is coming in the way. Janata Dal United leader Nitish Kumar has begun a fresh exercise to form a minority government in the state, without spelling out the support to be extended by the BJP to the proposed arrangement.
Bihar has been under President’s Rule for about one month as political parties failed to consolidate the fractured mandate to form a popular government.
Nitish Kumar made his plan to form a non-RJD and non-Congress government public after meeting the Lok Janashakti Party chief and Union Steel Minister Rambilas Paswan at the residence of the Bihar chief of the Samajwadi Party, Daddan Pahalwan. Nitish Kumar said later that they will hold further discussions in Delhi from April 3 to 5 to work out the modalities for a Government minus the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has written to the LJP, the Communist Party of India, the CPI(ML), the Samajwadi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and 17 Independents seeking their support for a 16-point Common Minimum Programme chalked out on the basis of the salient features contained in the election manifestos of these parties. He said the BJP had not been sidelined; it had been taken into confidence while drawing up the blueprint to break the deadlock holding up the formation of a popular Government.
Nitish Kumar’s idea that the new dispensation will get the BJP support from outside has been rejected by LJP chief Paswan who said that he sticks to his earlier stand that BJP’s support whether from inside or outside will not be acceptable. He told reporters in Patna, “it is absolutely wrong that the LJP is not averse to taking outside support from the BJP.”
Nitish Kumar had earlier claimed that the parties to whom he had written along with his party, the JDU, will have a strength of 120 members in the House of 243, just two short of a simple majority. He said that he is unwilling to seek the support of the Congress and the CPI(M) as they had been part of the RJD-led coalition that had been rejected by the people.
Paswan appears to have rejected the Nitish Kumar formula under pressure from the Left parties who came out strongly against any government in Bihar which is dependent upon the outside support of the BJP. They condemned Paswan for trying to travel in two boats at the same time, remaining part of the ruling UPA at the Centre and forming an alliance with the JDU, a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Observers say that while the efforts made by Nitish Kumar may not bear fruit immediately, his initiative has set off a chain of events which may speed up the efforts by various parties to form a popular government. Paswan’s LJP is facing the threat of defections induced by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD. Paswan has dissolved the LJP State Committee, ostensibly in a bid to keep his flock together and to guard against defections. There were reports that several newly elected legislators of his party wanted Paswan to move quickly towards an arrangement with JDU and other parties for the formation of a popular Government in the State.
The JDU national executive is meeting on April 10-11 when the Bihar developments are expected to be the main topic of discussion. There is also a demand from some JDU members that ties with the BJP should be cut so that the party’s secular credentials could be underscored.
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