Trust vote in Bihar today; Cong MLAs arrive in Patna, all parties keeping their flock intact

PATNA: With the crucial trust vote scheduled for Monday in Bihar, Congress legislators who have been staying in Telangana for a week returned to Patna on Sunday evening and went straight to the residence of former Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav.

The Congress legislators will be staying, until Monday, with their counterparts from RJD and the Left, at Yadav’s official residence 5, Deshratna Marg.

Bihar Congress CLP leader Dr Shakeel Ahmed Khan said the Congress is united. “The truth will win. Khela hoga, our fight is for social and economic justice,’’ he said.

The ‘Mahagathbandhan’ as the Congress, RJD and Left combine lost power in January as a result of JD(U) president and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s surprise return to the BJP-led NDA fold.

The NDA is comfortably placed, having a combined strength of 128 MLAs in the 243-member state Assembly.

Nonetheless, the Congress, which has only 19 MLAs, feared that its legislators might split ahead of the trust vote and sent them over to Telangana, a state ruled by the party.

The Opposition Mahagathbandhan has a total of 114 MLAs in its favour - eight short of the majority mark of 122.

Hectic political activity marked Sunday in Bihar’s capital on the eve of the trust vote. After the JD(U) meeting, JDU MLA Gopal Mandal said only two to three MLAs could not attend the meeting.

He asserted there will not be “any khela’’ and the NDA government will win the trust vote on Monday. Former Bihar CM and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi held a meeting of his legislators at his residence. He said that everybody is intact in NDA and all MLAs of BJP, JD(U) and HAM will remain present on Monday.