Nitish wins confidence vote, says no truck with corruption

The Nitish Kumar government on Friday won the crucial confidence vote in the Bihar Assembly. The ruling coalition of the JD(U), BJP and others got 131 votes while the opposition got 108 votes, Speaker Vijay Kumar Chowdhury said.

The trust vote was taken through lobby division. The NDA had earlier submitted a list of 132 MLAs to the Governor. These includ 71 of JD(U), BJP 53, RLSP two, LJP two, HAM one and three Independents.

In the 243-member Bihar Assembly, the RJD has 80 MLAs, the Congress 27 and the CPI-ML one.

Tejashwi Yadav, who was chosen as the leader of opposition, launched a scathing attack on Nitish Kumar and even went ahead to ask the Chief Minister, “Aapko sharm nahi aati?” (Aren’t you ashamed ?). Yadav, who was Deputy Chief Minister in the coalition government, also quipped during the assembly session, “agar himmat thhi to mujhe barkhasht karte.” (If you had guts, you should have dismissed me).

“I asked several questions in assembly today, but BJP and Nitish Kumar did not have any answer. People of Bihar will teach them a lesson. They couldn’t answer my questions in assembly, how will they answer them in public,” asked Tejashwi Yadav after Nitish and BJP won the floor test in Bihar. He added, “Nitish Kumar and BJP have betrayed the people’s mandate.”

In the Assembly, Sushil Kumar Modi responded to Yadav’s allegation and countered him by saying, “the mandate was not given to acquire benaami property and safeguard them. The mandate wasn’t given to acquire 26 benami properties in 26 years.”

Countering Yadav family’s claims that he joined hands with them to fight against secular powers, Nitish said “secularism doesn’t justify corruption. I will not support those who make money using wrong ways. Kursi rajbhog ke liye nahi hoti, seva karne ke liye hoti hai.”(power is not to enjoy power but to serve people)

Talking about the newly formed government, Nitish Kumar added “sarkaaar aage chalegi, Bihar ki khidmat karegi. Bhrashtachaar aur anyay ko bardaasht nahi karenge.”( the government will move forward, will serve Bihar. We will not tolerate corruption and injustice).

Sushil Modi, the newly appointed Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, sarcastically thanked Congress and RJD saying “I thank congress and RJD. Had Tejaswi resigned, I would not have been here.”

“Happy that govt led by Nitish Kumar has won vote of confidence, we will sit down soon to discuss about the cabinet” the Deputy CM added.

Earlier on Thursday, Lalu Yadav attacked Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi and Sushil Kumar Modi for breaking the grand alliance and accused them of planting a plan to tarnish his image.

RJD supremo alleged that “Nitish Kumar, along with BJP, used the CBI, IT and ED raids to tarnish my image. It was a fixed match where Sushil Modi was giving public statements against me in the media. Everything was being done just to tarnish my image.”

With inputs from PTI