CM Nitish Kumar-Led Govt Wins Bihar Floor Test With 129 MLAs' Support

Bihar Floor Test: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's government wins Floor test after 129 MLAs support him.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led NDA government emerged triumph in the recently concluded Bihar floor test on Monday. As many as 129 MLAs voted for the NDA-led alliance. The opposition walked out from the State Assembly, news agency ANI reported.

Before the no-trust vote, a motion to dismiss Bihar Assembly Speaker and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Awadh Bihari Choudhary was moved and carried by the State Assembly, and the Speaker was ousted. As many as 125 MLAs voted in the favour of motion, while 112 MLAs voted against the motion.

The RJD received a jolt after at least three of its members sat on the ruling party benches in the Bihar assembly. Party leader Tejashwi Yadav raised a point of order, taking objection to party MLAs Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi, and Prahlad Yadav sitting among members of the ruling NDA, ahead of voting on a no-confidence motion against Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, news agency PTI reported.

On this,  RJD leader Bhai Virendra told ANI, "The public will not make send them as MLA again..."

Ahead of the trust vote, the Congress flew its MLAs to Hyderabad last week due to fears about 'poaching', while the RJD's MLAs opted to stay together in Tejashwi Yadav's residence, while BJP leader Nityanand Rai said all 78 MLAs of the saffron party were at a hotel in Patna. Nitish Kumar's JD(U) has arranged for 40 of its MLAs to stay at another hotel in the state capital.

Earlier, the absence of a few MLAs from the JD(U) legislative party meeting on Sunday, as well as a couple of legislators from the BJP's two-day training workshop in Bodh Gaya, had given the opposition 'Mahagathbandhan' ammunition to claim that the NDA will fall short of the 122 votes required to remove the Speaker.

However, both the JD(U) and the BJP have downplayed these concerns, insisting that all MLAs will be present in the House. However, leaving nothing to chance, the JD(U) arranged for several of its MLAs to stay at a downtown hotel following the legislative party meeting.

Previously, Samrat Choudhary, the state BJP president and deputy chief minister, had warned that any efforts at horse trafficking would be met with strong punishment.

Nitish Kumar, who has been sworn in as chief minister for a record ninth term, had been closely monitoring the situation within the JD(U), attending both the legislative party meeting and a luncheon held a day earlier as a warm-up exercise ahead of the critical trust vote.