Nitish is back as Bihar Chief Minister in less than 24 hours

New Delhi / Less than 24 hours after Nitish Kumar tore apart the Grand Alliance in Bihar, he was back as the state’s chief minister this time in alliance with the BJP. Kumar, who had become the chief minister in October, 2015 after winning the state elections that month in alliance with the RJD and the Congress, walked out of the Grand Alliance Wednesday complaining that it had become difficult for him to work under the present circumstances. The CBI raids on premises linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family and the corruption taint on his deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav had proved to be too much for Kumar to continue with that arrangement.

Earlier today, Kumar was sworn-in as the state’s chief minister for the second time in two years followed by BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi taking oath at the Raj Bhavan in Patna. Modi has earlier served as the state’s deputy chief minister between 2005 and 2013 as part of the JD(U)-BJP government. The BJP chose to support the JD(U) in government formation after it said that it did not favour ‘mid-term polls.’ With Prime Minister Narendra Modi even tweeting to congratulate Kumar for fighting against corruption, the picture was clear.

At the same time, Tejashwi Yadav, who met Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi in the morning, was unable to persuade him to stall the swearing-in ceremony. RJD leaders complained that since theirs was the single-largest party in the Assembly with 80 MLAs, they should have been invited to form the government first. However, unlike the BJP-JD(U) combination that neatly crossed the half-way mark, an RJD-Congress alliance would have fallen short of getting a majority by almost 15 seats