JD(U), BJP jostle for Speaker and Home Minister posts in Bihar

The BJP central leadership’s ready acceptance of Nitish Kumar’s continuation as chief minister following the NDA’s stunning November 14 poll victory may have hastened the process of government formation in Bihar, but it hasn’t entirely glossed over the trust deficit between the allies.

As preparations continue in full swing at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan for Nitish’s 10^th swearing-in ceremony as chief minister, the BJP and JD-U are jostling for two key posts – that of the Assembly Speaker and the state’s new home minister; even as the two parties seem to be united in denying a deputy chief ministerial berth to Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas).

Though sources in the BJP camp claim that the JD-U has agreed to maintaining “status quo” of their previous arrangement – wherein the BJP retains the Speaker’s post and Nitish keeps the home portfolio with himself, close aides of the JD-U chief insist “negotiations are still on”.

Why JD(U) wants the two posts

At the root of the JD-U’s insistence on getting the Speaker’s post from the BJP, whose Nand Kishore Yadav held the post in the previous Assembly, appears to be the fear that the saffron party, at some later stage, may try to orchestrate defections from Nitish’s party to its own.

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Likewise, control over the home ministry, JD-U sources say, would act as some “safeguard” for the party against any attempt by the BJP to unleash the police and other state-level investigation agencies at Nitish’s MLAs if relations between the two allies go awry in the future.

‘Avoid replay of Maharashtra’

A constant refrain amongst the JD-U old guard seems to be that Nitish must “avert a replay of Maharashtra” in Bihar at all costs. The reference, of course, is to the manner in which the BJP had succeeded in splitting both Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in June 2022 and Sharad Pawar’s NCP the following year, which were then part of the Opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi.

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The Shiv Sena split had led to the fall of the MVA government then led by Uddhav Thackeray, but what really stung the deposed chief minister was the role that the new Speaker, the BJP’s Rahul Narwekar, played in deciding the petitions filed before him by the Thackeray camp seeking disqualification of the Eknath Shinde-led rebel MLAs on grounds of anti-defection.

Importance of Speaker’s post

The Speaker is the final arbiter in disqualification petitions brought against any MLA. In the Maharashtra case, Narwekar chose to ignore for over 17 months the Supreme Court’s repeated directives to expeditiously decide on the pleas moved by the Thackeray camp before finally dismissing the petitions.

“The khela (game) by Amit Shah in Maharashtra is in front of us,” a close aide of Nitish told The Federal while conceding the JD-U’s “distrust” of the BJP and claiming that the “role of the Speaker is most significant in breaking or making a government in the event of defections from any side (among allies of the ruling coalition or between the Treasury and Opposition sides)”.

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The JD-U leader added that over the past two decades, the Speaker’s post had remained with the JD-U for over 15 years and that it was only in 2020 that an NDA government under Nitish saw the Assembly Speaker’s post go to a BJP leader (Vijay Kumar Sinha, who held the post between November 2020 and August 2022, when Nitish made another of his famous switches to the Opposition’s Grand Alliance).

The jostling for the Speaker’s post comes in the wake of rumours that have kept Patna buzzing ever since the poll results that saw the BJP and the JD-U win 89 and 85 seats, respectively. Many believe that the way the numbers in the Bihar assembly currently stack up, Nitish has no room to switch allegiances again from the NDA to the Grand Alliance, which has been left with only 35 MLAs.

That the BJP agreed to continue with Nitish as CM had itself surprised those within the saffron party who had believed that their party’s moment to have one of its own as CM of Bihar had finally arrived.

Speculation about the future

However, speculations have continued over the trajectory that the new government may follow in case Nitish, at some later stage, grows weary of the BJP, which is once again the JD-U’s senior partner, and begins exploring the possibility of another somersault. JD-U leaders from the old guard caution that such an eventuality could prompt the BJP to ‘go for the kill’ and split Nitish’s ranks much like the fate that the Shiv Sena and NCP had met with in Maharashtra.

The same reservations apply to the JD-U’s demand for retaining the home portfolio as a section of party leaders believe giving away control over prosecution to the BJP could come back to haunt Nitish if and when the senior ally decides to use such powers to persecute JD-U leaders in a bid to force them to switch allegiances.

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Sources in the JD-U say that the tug of war over the two posts could be resolved when the Union home minister Amit Shah arrives in Patna later on Wednesday (November 19), a day ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the new Bihar cabinet.

Some in the JD-U have also proposed that if the competing claims of the two parties are not settled, the new MLAs must be allowed to take oath, as is the norm, with the Pro-Tem Speaker presiding over the proceedings while a decision on the new Speaker could be taken at a later stage “after weighing in all options”.

A similar arrangement may be sought in terms of distribution of certain key portfolios, including home and finance, in the new Nitish Kumar cabinet even if all its members are sworn-in on Thursday (November 20).