Nitish flies 130 MLAs to Delhi for show of support

Mangalore Today News Network

Patna/New Delhi:Feb 10, 2015, DHNS: Former chief minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar flew to New Delhi along with 130 MLAs supporting him on Tuesday, after waiting for more than 24 hours for a communiqué from Raj Bhavan.

He is expected to parade his legislators before President Pranab Mukherjee soon.
Most of the lawmakers flew to New Delhi in two batches in separate IndiGo flights, with Nitish leaving in the latter.

The others are expected to reach Delhi on Wednesday “We were left with no option other than to fly our supporters to New Delhi, where we will meet the President and parade our supporters in front of him,” said Shrawan Kumar, who, till a day ago, was Bihar’s parliamentary affairs minister, before being sacked by Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Earlier in the day, Nitish conceded that it was a mistake to have appointed Manjhi as his successor.

“I must admit that I erred in choosing my successor. Now it’s time for course correction. Hence we have informed the governor that he should take a decision (on forming new government) at the earliest, or else the game of horse-trading would turn murky,” said Nitish.

Congratulating Arvind Kejriwal on his landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly polls, Nitish said, “We had maintained right from the beginning that there was no such (Modi) wave. But people mistook a ‘blower’ as the ‘BJP wave’ and got carried away. The BJP’s downfall has begun, and it will be decimated in the coming Bihar Assembly elections too.”

Meanwhile, Manjhi, who convened a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, gave his nod to the proposal for reservation of contractors belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe in contracts pertaining to road construction.