Nitish Kumar to take oath as Bihar CM today; RJD to skip ceremony, Amit Shah to attend

Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as the Bihar chief minister on Monday at a ceremony in Patna. While Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J P Nadda will be present at the ceremony, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has decided to boycott the event. The party put out a statement on its twitter handle announcing that they will boycott the ceremony as “the public gave the mandate to change which is against the NDA.”

RJD Boycotts the ceremony:

“RJD boycotts the swearing-in ceremony. The mandate for change was against NDA.The mandate has been changed into government order. As the unemployed youth, farmers, contract workers, teachers what they are going through. People are upset with the fraud committed by NDA. We are people’s representatives and we stand with people,” said RJD, the single largest party of Bihar.

According to a Raj Bhavan communication, Governor Phagu Chauhan will administer the oath of office and secrecy to Kumar at 4:30 pm. Sources said that besides Kumar, eight others from the four NDA constituents BJP, JD(U), HAM and VIP may be sworn in and the cabinet may be expanded at a later stage, news agency PTI reported.

Nitish Kumar as Bihar CM:

JDU chief Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as Bihar CM in Patna, later today. Kumar’s party won 43 seats out of 71 it contested in the Bihar elections while its alliance partner BJP won 74, one short of RJD’s tally. Kumar had on Friday said that he did not wish to stay as chief minister but it is the wish of the BJP.

While Kumar will continue as the chief minister, Sushil Modi has been dropped as the deputy chief minister this time.

In a surprise twist, the BJP named four-time Katihar MLA Tarkishore Prasad as its Legislature Party leader, indicating Modi may not again get the post he has held for much of the 15 years that Nitish has been CM.

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By Sunday evening, Modi had dropped ‘deputy CM’ from his Twitter bio. He tweeted in Hindi, “Karyakarta ka padd toh koi chheen nahin sakta (At least no one can take away my position as a party worker).”

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There was no official word from the BJP, though sources said Modi might be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha in the seat that has fallen vacant with Ram Vilas Paswan’s death, and made a minister at the Centre, or named the Governor of a state. Both Nitish and the BJP parried questions regarding who would be the next deputy CM.

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