Nitish wins Bihar floor test, Speaker removed

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won the floor test in Bihar Assembly today. The trust vote was passed first by voice vote and later by voting. Whereas three opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) legislators Chetan Anand, Prahlad Yadav and Neelam Devi supported Nitish, he got the support of 129 MLAs, which was one vote more than the parties’ support to the government. According to parties, the government had the support of 128 MLAs.

Just before voting, during Nitish’s speech, the Opposition members walked out of the House. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) workers were on a rampage at the ‘R’ Block circle in Patna, shouting slogans. Police used force to push everyone back from there but the RJD workers were not ready to move. Some workers were detained by the police.

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Incidentally, during the voting on the no-confidence motion against Speaker Avadh Bihari Chaudhary, who belongs to the RJD, 125 MLAs voted in support of the government while 112 legislators remained with the Opposition. But thereafter, Nitish got the support of 129 MLAs by the time of voting on the floor test of the government. Sources said that an MLA Dilip Rai of the ruling Janata Dal-United abstained from voting in the floor test while Maheshwar Hazari was running the House. Out of the total of 129 votes that were cast in favour of Nitish, 126 were from the ruling party and three from the RJD. It also became clear that the MLAs of the ruling party remained with the government.

With the removal of the Speaker,  it became clear that Nitish had the majority and the division of votes after the debate on the government’s trust vote was a formality. Choudhary initiated the conduct of the State Assembly and after informing about the notice of no-confidence motion against him, handed over the work of conduct to Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari.

During the debate, leaders of opposition parties, including RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, made sharp attacks on Nitish while in response, Vijay Chaudhary, Vijay Sinha and Samrat Chaudhary reminded the era of RJD governments before Nitish and the allegations of corruption against the Lalu Yadav family.

Earlier, during the Governor’s address to the members of the Bihar Assembly and Council, the Opposition benches started sloganeering. Governor Rajendra Arlekar praised the work of the government. He mentioned the police reforms and said that now there will be around 170 policemen per lakh population. He mentioned that 257 new police stations had been created. He also mentioned that now the number of girls in matriculation had reached equal to that of boys.

– global bihari bureau