Hours before the swearing-in ceremony of the new government led by Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar, Opposition parties Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress on Monday announced that they would not attend the function as the “mandate for change was against the NDA”.
“The RJD boycotts the swearing-in ceremony. The mandate for change was against the NDA and the mandate has been converted into government order. Ask the unemployed youth, farmers, contract workers, teachers of Bihar what they are going through. People are upset with the fraud committed by the NDA. We’re people’s representatives and we stand with the people,” tweeted the RJD, the single largest party with 75 seats in 243 seats of Assembly.
Later, State Congress president Madan Mohan Jha too said that “party would not attend the function as the alliance partner RJD has boycotted it and we believe that the mandate was against the NDA. Moreover, we’ve also not received the invitation yet for the ceremony, but even after getting the invitation we’ll not attend it”.
Bihar Governor Phagu Chauhan will administer oath to Mr. Kumar as Chief Minister for the fourth consecutive term at 4.30 p.m. at the Raj Bhavan in Patna on Monday.
There is speculation that there would be two Deputy Chief Ministers Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi from the BJP which bagged 74 seats in recently concluded Assembly election. The BJP is also expected to get the Speaker’s post.
The buzz in political circles is that as many as seven Ministers will be from the BJP and five from the JD(U) in the new Cabinet. From two other alliance partners of the NDA, Mukesh Sahni from the Vikasheel Insaan Party and Santosh Manjhi from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) too will be take oath as Ministers.
BJP president J.P. Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah and Devendra Fadnavis along with other senior party leaders are expected to attend the ceremony.
The JD(U) leaders likely to be inducted into the Cabinet are Bijendra Yadav, Ashok Choudhary, Mewalal Choudhary, Vijay Choudhury and Sheela Kumari, while from the BJP the names of Mangal Pandey, Raghvendra Pratap Singh, Rampreet Paswan, Jivesh Mishra and Nand Kishore Yadav are being mentioned.