No consensus on Nitish's successor? BJP core committee meeting to decide next Bihar CM cancelled

New Delhi: Deliberations to decide the successor of Nitish Kumar as the next chief minister of Bihar faced some delay, as a meeting of the core committee of the Bihar BJP unit, scheduled for Friday, was cancelled at the last moment.

The sudden cancellation of the meeting is being attributed to some disagreements with alliance partners, even as Nitish took oath as a Rajya Sabha member.

A meeting of the core committee of the party was to be held with several leaders from the state including the two deputy chief ministers, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha. Members of the NDA including senior JD(U) leader Vijay Choudhary were also present in Delhi to be a part of the deliberations. Senior BJP leaders including president Nitin Nabin, former president J P Nadda as well as general secretary Vinod Tawde were present too. Union home minister Amit Shah was supposed to attend the meeting after his Bengal visit.

However, sources in the NDA said that some leaders did not agree to the BJP’s proposal of naming Samrat as Nitish’s successor. The BJP, keen to have a smooth transition of power, decided to postpone the meeting with several leaders heading to Bihar instead.

Sources in the BJP said that a central observer will be announced soon, and a meeting of the core committee of the party will be held. The Legislature Party of the BJP in Bihar is also set to meet in Patna in the coming days. The BJP is also wary of not offending the Nitish voter base, and wants to avoid sending the message that he was cast aside after the polls were won.

Samrat’s name had also not found much acceptance within the RSS, sources said, in a deliberation with the saffron outfit last month. Other names doing the rounds are Speaker Prem Kumar and senior party leader Sanjeev Chaurasiya. Both leaders are from the EBC community, but Prem Kumar's perception as an educated leader may work in his favour.

BJP’s agreement with its allies on the change of guard is that the chief minister will be from the BJP, and Nishant Kumar, Nitish’s son will be the deputy CM. JD(U) sources said that they insisted on no other Deputy CM as it does not want power sharing in the post. Apart from that, the party will induct 15 ministers in the Cabinet, while the Lok Janshakti Party will have two. Other allies including Hindustan Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Morcha will have one minister each.