Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav will not attend the oath-taking ceremony of Bihar CM designate Nitish Kumar to be held in Patna today, reports said on Monday.
The swearing-in would take place between 4 and 4.30 P.M. at Raj Bhavan on Monday. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda will attend the ceremony. The two leaders are reaching Patna by a chartered flight.
The RJD is boycotting the ceremony, saying that the mandate for change is against the NDA.
"The RJD boycotts swearing-in ceremony. The mandate for change is against the NDA. The mandate was replaced with "government order". Ask the unemployed, farmers, contract workers, contract teachers of Bihar what is going on with them. The public is agitated by the fraud of the NDA. We are the people's representative and stand with the public," the party said in a tweet in Hindi.
There are speculations that BJP leaders Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi will take oath as Deputy CMs. There is, however, no official confirmation on this.
Prasad on Monday morning acknowledged that there are indications that he will take oath as Nitish's deputy.
"There are indications that Renu ji and I will take oath as Deputy Chief Ministers of Bihar," Prasad said.
Reesponding to questions by reporters, Renu Devi said, "It is a big responsibility. If people have elected us and trusted the NDA, we will work to meet their expectations."
BJP is likely to get the most number of ministerial berths. On Monday, seven members each from the BJP and JD(U) members are likely to take an oath with Mukesh Sahani's VIP and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular getting one ministry each. Excluding Kumar, 18 ministers are likely to take oath on Monday.
HAM president Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former Chief Minister, has ruled himself out of joining the new ministry and is said to be lobbying for his son Santosh Suman who is a member of the legislative council.
The VIP is in a peculiar position as all its four MLAs are said to be BJP cadre who fought on the fledgling outfit's symbol, while the two-year-old party's founding president Mukesh Sahni, a former Bollywood set designer, himself lost in the elections.
National Democratic Alliance claimed victory this Bihar 2020 elections, boasting 125 seats in the 243 strong Bihar Legislative Assembly with Bhartiya Janata Party and JD(U) winning 74 and 43 seats respectively.
