Rebel Cong & RJD leaders join BJP in poll-bound Bihar

Patna: The BJP in Bihar on Monday inducted two rebel leaders of the INDIA Bloc who had won the last Assembly polls on tickets of RJD and Congress, but had been sitting with members of the NDA inside the Assembly after JD(U) of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joined it in 2024.

State BJP president Dilip Jaiswal welcomed into the party Sangita Kumari, who last week resigned from her Mohania seat she had won as an RJD nominee, besides Siddharth Saurav, a two-term Congress MLA from Bikram.

According to a statement issued by the Assembly secretariat, Saurav resigned from his seat on Monday.

“I had recently said that nearly half a dozen MLAs of the INDIA Bloc are going to jump ship. Today is the first instalment,” Jaiswal told reporters on the occasion.

Altogether six MLAs, four of the RJD and two of the Congress, had crossed over to the NDA when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won a trust vote after forming a new government with the BJP in January 2024.

Pleas by the respective parties for their disqualification remained pending before Speaker Nand Kishor Yadav.