Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won the floor test in the State Assembly on Friday, after the 'mahagathbandan', comprising the JD(U), the RJD and the Congress came to an end on Wednesday.
Mr. Kumar and the BJP, who claimed to have the support of 131 legislators in the 243-member Assembly, won the test with all of their 131 votes intact.
They needed 122 votes to win. The Opposition garnered 108 votes.
The trust vote was conducted through lobby division, as the legislators have been asked to go and vote in a separate lobby.
Earlier, Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary tried to conduct the vote through voice vote, but later, it was decided do it by lobby division.
BJP, Nitish 'humiliated' electoral mandate: Tejashwi
Rashtriya Janata Dal's Tejashwi Yadav told ANI after the vote, ''the mandate was for the 'mahagathbandhan' but today, the BJP and Mr. Kumar have humiliated that mandate."
"Asked several questions in the Assembly today, but the BJP and Mr. Kumar had no answers to them," he said. "People of Bihar will teach them a lesson; when they couldn't answer my questions in Assembly, then how will they answer the people? People of Bihar had suffered immensely."
''We did not put any pressure on the Chief Minister ever," ANI reports Mr. Yadav as saying in the Assembly.
Secularism should not be used to justify corruption: Nitish
The Chief Minister's Chair is for service, Mr. Kumar told the Assembly. "The government will move on, will serve Bihar. We will not tolerate corruption and injustice," he said.
"Secularism should not be used to justify corruption. Won't support people who make money through wrong way," he added.
Earlier in the day, RJD MLAs are protested outside the Assembly ahead of the floor test and party leaders appealed to the JD(U) and other legislators to vote on the “voice of the conscience”. The RJD has 80 MLAs.
Petitions challenging new govt. adjourned till Monday
Amid the developments, the Patna High Court on Friday adjourned the hearing on two PIL petitions challenging the formation of a government by Mr. Kumar along with the BJP, till Monday.
After a brief hearing, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice A.K. Upadhyay adjourned the matter.
What caused the Mahagathbandhan break-up?
Sources in the Janata Dal (U) say that the release of the Siwan strongman and former MP Shahabuddin, a member of the RJD’s National Committee, the top decision making body of the party, was the first trigger in what eventually led to the break-up.
