Patna: A day after five Janata Dal (United) MLAs from Manipur merged with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday wondered if it was “constitutional” and affirmed that the opposition will unite for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“When we parted ways from NDA, all our six Manipur MLAs came and met us. They assured us that they were with JDU. We need to think about what is going on. They are breaking away the MLAs from the parties, is it constitutional?,” said CM Nitish Kumar.
“Opposition will unify for 2024 elections,” Kumar further added.
On Friday, five Janata Dal (United) MLAs merged with BJP giving a big jolt to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his party.
As per a statement issued by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat, the Speaker of the Manipur Legislative Assembly was pleased to accept the merger of five JD(U) MLAs with the BJP under the tenth schedule of the Constitution.
These names included Kh. Joykishan Singh, Ngursanglur Sanate, Md. Achab Uddin, Thangjam Arunkumar and L.M. Khaute.
The Bharatiya Janata Party secured a majority of 32 seats in the 60-member state Assembly in the recently held Assembly elections, results of which were declared on March 10.
Earlier, a bulk of the JDU MLAs joined the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh giving a nightmare to Nitish Kumar’s party.
Back on 25 August, the lone JDU MLA from Arunachal Pradesh, Techi Kaso, also joined the BJP in the presence of national president JP Nadda and Arunachal CM Pema Khandu, with which the BJP now has 49 out of 60 Assembly seats (MLA).
Out of 9 Corporators of JDU, 8 have joined BJP; now the total number of BJP corporators is 18 out of 20.
Further, out of 18 Zilla Parishad members (ZPM) of JDU, 17 have joined BJP. Now out of 241 members, BJP has 206 Zilla Parishad members.
In addition, out of 119 Gram Panchayat Members (GPM) of JDU, more than 100 joined BJP. With this, BJP now has around 6530 out of 8332.
The latest political developments came weeks after CM Nitish Kumar dumped BJP and joined hands with Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and other parties to form a ‘mahagathbandhan’ and govern Bihar.
Those aware of the development say that the BJP has decided to hit back at the JDU after what transpired in Bihar recently. In 2020, the BJP-JD(U) fought election in an alliance and went on to form the government with Nitish Kumar being given the Chief Minister’s post.
In less than two years’ time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a ‘Grand Alliance’ government in Bihar.
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