Nitish Kumar To Take Oath As Bihar Chief Minister After Chhath Festival

After Saturday’s legislature party meeting, the alliance would formally stake claim to forming the government.

The Mahagathbandhan won 178 seats in Bihar, a commanding two-third majority in the 243-member assembly. There will be 16 ministers from Lalu Prasad’s RJD, 15 from the JD-U and five from the Congress. “The grand alliance’s victory even after the aggressive campaigning by PM and his cabinet colleagues has proved our countrymen do not endorse hate politics”. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will attend Nitish Kumar’s oath-taking ceremony.

Taking a jibe at the internal conflicts in the BJP post the debacle in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said the saffron party was now witnessing the wrath of its negative campaigning in the state. JD(U) has 71 MLAs and Congress 27 seats.

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”, Kumar said, reacting to the strongly-worded statement of BJP veterans L K Advani, M M Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha raising a banner of revolt against the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “All major anti-NDA parties will unite in coming days”, he said. State JD (U) president Bashistha Narain Singh, a close confidant of Nitish, said the entire world had evinced interest in the election that unfolded in Bihar and the message of the electorate is loud and clear.