Patna, April 13: The ball was set rolling on Monday in Bihar for the formation of a new, BJP-led government, with the ruling NDA scheduling its meeting on Tuesday when legislators will elect the successor to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“Tomorrow, the BJP legislature party meeting will be held at the party office at 2 pm. This will be followed by a meeting of the NDA legislators, at the central hall of the assembly, at 4 pm,” state BJP president Sanjay Saraogi said.
He said Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whom the BJP parliamentary board has appointed as “central observer” for the election of its legislature party leader, will be flying down to the state capital for the purpose.
Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), has convened his last cabinet meeting on Tuesday at 11 am, when he is likely to make a formal announcement of his decision to step down, before heading to the Lok Bhawan for submitting his resignation.
“It is a constitutional requirement. The chief minister informs his colleagues about his decision to dissolve the cabinet and goes to the Governor with the recommendation,” said Dilip Jaiswal, minister and former Bihar BJP president.
Kumar, the state’s longest-serving CM, took all by surprise last month when he announced that he was seeking election to the Rajya Sabha. The JD(U) supremo, who turned 75 recently, had led the NDA to a resounding victory in the assembly polls held in November last year.
Speculations are rife that Kumar could be succeeded by his deputy Samrat Choudhary, son of his former close aide Shakuni Choudhary, who joined the BJP in 2017 after spending nearly two decades in the RJD, the saffron party’s principal rival in Bihar. (PTI)
