Will Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu Support Union Budget 2024 After Centre Denies Special Status Demand?

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Center, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has denied the demand for special status to Bihar state, which was raised by alliance partners from Bihar Janata Dal-United president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas Paswan) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan, Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) supremo Jiten Ram Manjhi and others.

A day ahead of the Union Finance Budget 2024, JDU MP Ramprit Mandal sought a response from the Finance Ministry on plans to give special status to Bihar and other most backward states to promote economic growth and industrialisation. He was left stunned when he received a written response from Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, stating "case for Special Category Status for Bihar is not made out".

A similar response was given in the Lok Sabha also, today during the first day of Budget session 2024.

However, BJP is saying that Bihar and Andhra Pradesh will receive special financial packages.

But soon after the big news went viral, reports and rumours related to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's next step started to surface on social media platforms. A big section of netizens believe that the JDU chief may once again switch sides as Bihar Assembly Elections are due in the next few months.

Reports said that Nitish Kumar still has an offer from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad Yadav to again form government in the state, on the condition to take back JDU's support from NDA. JDU has 12 Lok Sabha Seats.

If this happens, then Jiten Ram Majhi (1 seat) will also walk out of the alliance and it is expected that Andhra Pradesh's Chandra Babu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan, who have similar demands for their state, are also likely to break the alliance.

Collectively, Nitish Kumar (12) + Jiten Ram Manjhi (1) + Chandrababu Naidu (16) + Pawan Kalyan (2) make 31 seats, which may impact the BJP-led NDA government's total of 293 seats badly. If such reports are to be believed, then the NDA will have the support of only 262 MPs, which is 10 short of the majority mark.

In such a situation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government will fail to get approval from the House for Finance Bill 2024, and the current government at the center will collapse.