JD-U issues whip to vote for Nitish

The Janata Dal-United (JD-U) on Tuesday warned its rebel MLAs that they should be ready “to be disqualified within three hours after the trust vote if they defied the party whip inside the Assembly” when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar moves confidence motion on Wednesday.

In an uncharacteristic threat by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shrawan Kumar, who, otherwise, is mild-mannered, told the dozen odd JD-U legislators from Manjhi camp to fall in line as they are left with no other option.

“I have issued a whip asking all the JD-U MLAs to express confidence in the Nitish government during the floor test in the Bihar Assembly on March 11.

There is no option for any of the 110 party MLAs,” said Shrawan, who is also the chief whip of the ruling party.

Though Manjhi, who has been expelled from the party and declared an “unattached” member, ruling party mandarins aver that the whip will be applicable on the former chief minister too as he is technically a JD-U legislator.

With the JD-U cracking the whip on Manjhi and his dozen-odd MLAs, it will be interesting to see whether the former chief minister and his supporters are asked to sit in the House as a separate bloc or will be asked to join the Nitish bandwagon.

“Since all the 110 party MLAs, including the rebels, are JD-U legislators, they will have to sit in the Assembly in one group,” added Shrawan.