Bihar’s Mahagathbandhan in shambles? Nitish, Lalu to hold separate meeting with MLAs

On Wednesday, both Lalu and Nitish are going to meet their respective party MLAs in two separate meetings in Patna, Bihar.

Patna, July 26: It is just a matter of time when Bihar's Mahagathbandhan or Grand Coalition would break apart. But before that, the coalition partners-- Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Janata Dal (United) (JD-U)--are taking their own sweet time to decide on the future course of action.

According to reports, both Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar are going to host separate meetings with their respective MLAs on Wednesday.

The two meetings of MLAs of both the parties are coming just ahead of the monsoon session of the Bihar assembly. If things were fine between the coalition partners, the two meetings would have been clubbed into one.

As the friction between the alliance partners has reached the zenith over the resignation of deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, it looks like both Lalu and Nitish would decide with their MLAs their future course of action during the meetings.

While JD (U) chief and Bihar CM Nitish wants his deputy to resign over corruption allegations, the RJD chief Lalu once again stated recently that Tejashwi, his son, won't leave the post.

The MLAs of the Congress, also part of the coalition government in the state, will be part of the meeting hosted by the RJD.

The monsoon session of the Bihar Assembly is slated from Friday onwards. Thus, Nitish and his men don't want Tejashwi, who has been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on corruption charges, to join them in the Assembly as it would dent the CM's "clean image".

Nitish and his party are in tremendous pressure from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar to remove tainted deputy CM from the cabinet.

However, the RJD and the Congress are in no mood to allow Tejashwi to leave his coveted post. Recently, Nitish met Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to discuss the issue of resignation of Tejashwi.

While Nitish clearly stated that his deputy must leave the cabinet, Rahul, on his part, reportedly stated mere filing of FIR can't be grounds to seek resignation.

Recently, Tejashwi met his 'big boss' to present his case. Reports say that Nitish is not going to rest till his deputy leaves the cabinet.

Amid all these developments, Nitish has asked JD (U) MLAs not to talk to the media regarding Tejashwi's resignation.

Sources say, Wednesday's meetings, scheduled in the evening, are likely to clear the picture regarding the fate of Bihar's Mahagathbandhan.

OneIndia News