Amid strong hints that the JD(U) may part ways with the BJP and realign with the RJD-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’, Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav have called for separate meetings of their MLAs in Patna on Tuesday.
Following his long run-in with the BJP, Kumar is also believed to have spoken to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and discussed the possibility of government formation in Bihar.
If the JD(U) moves out of the alliance, the government in Bihar will collapse since none of the parties has a complete majority in the state.
As the already strained ties between the BJP and JD(U) have reached a new low, let us take at where the parties stand in terms of numbers in the state Assembly.
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The 2020 Bihar Assembly polls were a close contest between the NDA and RJD-led opposition. Of the 125 seats won by the NDA, the BJP bagged 74 seats, JD(U) 43, Vikassheel Insaan Party four and Hindustan Awaam Party (Secular) four. This put the NDA just above the requisite 122-majority mark needed to form the government.
The RJD and its allies, on the other hand, had won 110 seats. The RJD finished as the single-largest party with 75 seats, while the Congress won a mere 19 seats. Of the 29 seats the Left parties had contested, they won in 16, with the CPI (ML-Liberation) winning 12 of them. Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM had won five seats in the Seemanchal region of the state. Four of its MLAs have switched to the RJD. Chirag Paswan’s Lok Jan Shakti Party had won just a single seat.
Earlier this year, three VIP MLAs joined the BJP, taking its tally up to 77, making it the single largest party. The RJD later retained the position of being the single largest party after four AIMIM MLAs joined it.
