BJP to back Manjhi in floor test today

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has issued a whip asking its legislators to vote in favour the Jitan Ram Manjhi government during a confidence motion in the Bihar Assembly on Friday.

The BJP has 87 MLAs, while the JD(U) faction led by former chief minister Nitish Kumar claims to enjoy the support of 97 MLAs.

The decision to support Manjhi was taken at the meeting of BJP Legislature Party (BJPLP) held at the residence of former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi where the BJP’s Bihar in-charge Bhupendra Yadav was also present. 
 
The BJP’s decision came within hours after the Manjhi camp suffered a setback on Thursday when the Patna High Court restrained four rebel Janata Dal (U) MLAs from participating in the voting process on February 20.

The four legislators – Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, Neeraj Kumar Babloo, Ravindra Rai and Rahul Sharma — were disqualified by Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary for voting against the party’s official candidate during the Rajya Sabha bypolls in June 2014. The four MLAs had  got a reprieve from Patna High Court early this year, when the single judge bench overturned the Speaker’s order and directed him to restore their membership.

However, the Speaker never acted on the order. To add more discomfiture to Manjhi, the Speaker on Thursday recognised JD(U) as the main Opposition party besides awarding the post of Leader of the Opposition to JD(U) leader Vijay Choudhary in place of BJP’s Nand Kishore Yadav. Similarly, Nitish was recognised as Leader of the Opposition in the Council.

Peculiar situation
Though both the factions of the JD(U) – one led by Manjhi and other by Nitish – claim to enjoy majority in the House, it will be a peculiar situation in the Assembly on Friday when the treasury bench will be led by Manjhi and the Opposition bench will be led by JD(U). Though officially, Manjhi has been expelled from the JD(U), legal experts feel that he and his Council of Ministers would be treated as representatives of JD(U) till voted out. 

“In Parliamentary history, this will be for the first time that the ruling as well as main Opposition will be represented by the same party,” said senior BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav.

“If a decision on Leader of the Opposition was to be taken, it could have been taken after trust vote on Friday. We strongly protest the Speaker’s action as he is acting at the behest of Nitish and for indulging in unethical and unconstitutional acts,” said Yadav.

Dinner diplomacy
Meanwhile, the dinner diplomacy in both the camps continued with Nitish and Manjhi throwing dinner parties for their supporters at their respective residence on Thursday night.