Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the ‘born-again’ Janata Dal (United)-BJP government sailed through a trust vote Monday afternoon, after the opposition – the Rashtriya Janata Dal of ex-Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, the Congress and the Left Front – walked out of the Assembly.

The final score was 129-0 in favour of the JDU-BJP alliance, which also managed to flip three vote from Mr Yadav’s RJD. The majority mark in the 243-member Assembly was set at 122.

Earlier today there was high drama after Nitish Kumar formally sought the Assembly’s support.

A furious Tejashwi Yadav unleashed a barrage of sarcastic taunts and swipes at his former ally, reminding his new partner – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP – of the ‘paltu Kumar’ label.

“Can PM Modi ‘guarantee’ he won’t flip again?” Mr Yadav asked to cheers of approval from party members. Mr Yadav also demanded Nitish Kumar explain his actions to the people of Bihar.

“When you came out of Raj Bhavan after resigning, you said ”mann nhi lag raha tha’… hum log nachne gaane ke liye thode hai (you said you weren’t ‘enjoying it’… are we there to entertain you)? We were there to support you,” he raged.

“… but he took oath thrice in a single term. This is something we never saw before.”

Mr Yadav also hit out at the decision to award former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur – mentor to Nitish Kumar and RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav – suggesting the honour was part of a “deal”.

READ | Ex-Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur Gets Posthumous Bharat Ratna

“I am happy Karpoori Thakur got Bharat Ratna. They (the BJP) made a deal… ‘come with us and we will give you (the JDU) a Bharat Ratna’…” Tejashwi Yadav declared.

READ | Bharat Ratna To Karpoori Thakur As Impetus For Nitish Kumar’s U-Turn?

Mr Thakur was an iconic socialist leader who was Chief Minister twice in the 1970s, and is credited with implementing the state’s contentious alcohol prohibition policy. Still remembered today as ‘jan nayak‘, or ‘leader of the people’, Karpoori Thakur’s legacy remains a valuable asset for political parties today.

After Mr Yadav’s speech his RJD, the Congress, and the Left Front – all former allies of Nitish Kumar’s erstwhile government – walked out of the Assembly.

Earlier Awadh Bihari Choudhary was removed as Speaker; he failed a no-confidence motion of his own, with 125 members voting to sack him. Mr Choudhary is from the RJD, which was dumped last month by Nitish Kumar, less than two years after he cut ties with the BJP.

Nitish Kumar took oath as Chief Minister for a ninth time last month, saying the mahagathbandhan – the alliance the RJD – was “not right”. Sources, however, said he was more upset about the lack of the INDIA bloc’s poll prep. He was reportedly also upset over being snubbed as a possible PM face.

As a result, Nitish Kumar ditched the mahagathbandan and INDIA and formed a new government with the BJP. Often mocked as “paltu Kumar”, for his many flip-flops, the Bihar Chief Minister met PM Modi in Delhi last week, after which he said he would “never” again leave the party-led NDA.

READ | Nitish Kumar Meets PM Modi, Says Will Never Leave NDA Again

Nitish Kumar’s quitting of INDIA has left the bloc – formed last year to unite the opposition and defeat the BJP – on the verge of breaking up, after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Aam Aadmi Party both said they intend to go their own way, for now.

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Union Minister Smriti Irani today slammed the Mamata Banerjee government over the allegations of women in south Bengal’s Sandeshkhali, declaring that “young Hindu married women” are being targetted by Trinamool Congress goons. The state has been in the eye of a political storm over the allegations of women, who have accused a local Trinamool leader of systematic sexual exploitation. The man in question, Zilla Parishad member Sheikh Shajahan — also accused of land grabbing — is on the run. He is also wanted by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged PDS scam.

Sandeshkhali, an island in Sundarbans close to the Bangladesh border, has been placed under Prohibitory Orders banning large gatherings.

“Young Hindu married women are being deliberately targetted,” Ms Irani alleged, reading out what she said were the women’s version of events as told to the local media.

That Mamata Banerjee “will now allow her men to pick out young Hindu married women to be raped night after night in the TMC office cannot be articulated in mere words. Can we as citizens be mute spectators?’ she said.

Over the last days, a large number of women in Sandeshkhali, armed with sticks and brooms, have been holding protests, alleging that Sheikh Shajahan and his “gang” have captured swathes of land by force, and are sexually exploiting them.

In a video unverified by NDTV, that’s being widely circulated online, a woman alleged that they are being dragged off to the Trinamool office, kept overnight and sexually assaulted.

The women have demanded the arrest of Sheikh Shajahan, who has been on the run since a team of the Enforcement Directorate went to raid his house last month in connection with an alleged ration scam. The team was attacked by a mob.

Ms Irani said the agency has given a police statement that three of the officials were injured in the stone throwing that took place in Sandeshkhali.

Earlier today, senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and other MLAs of the party were stopped from visiting the area by the police, who cited the prohibitory orders.

Governor CV Ananda Bose later visited Sandeshkhali after which, he said he would “do everything in my power to help”.

“When I heard about shocking and shattering incidents of Sandeshkhali, I cut short my visit to Kerala. I am going to Sandeskhali and want to see it myself what the real sandesh (message) from the gullies (lanes) of Sandeshkhali,” he said at the Kolkata airport this morning.

Welcoming his visit, Mamata Banerjee told reporters today that “in as much as possible, people responsible for the violence have been arrested”.

She said the state women’s commission has also visited the area and spoken to the people.

Congress’s Sonia Gandhi is likely to move from the hurly burly of Lok Sabha elections, handing the baton to daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, sources have told NDTV. The veteran leader is likely to be nominated for a Rajya Sabha seat in Rajasthan. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the Lok Sabha polls from the family turf of Raebareli, sources said. This would be Ms Gandhi Vadra’s first election.

Sonia Gandhi, 77, who has not been keeping well, is likely to file nomination from Jaipur in the coming round of Rajya Sabha election, sources said.

For the Congress, it would be a huge Change of Guard. Mrs Gandhi has been representing Raebareli in the Lok Sabha since 2006. She had won the seat even in 2019, when the Congress performance was at its all-time low and Rahul Gandhi lost the other family turf of Uttar Pradesh — Amethi — to the BJP’s Smriti Irani.

For Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, whose entry in electoral politics has been speculated on for decades, this is seen as a safe seat.  The constituency, a Congress bastion since 1950s, was first represented by her grandfather Feroze Gandhi.

It was expected that Ms Gandhi Vadra would contest in 2019 when she formally entered politics in January that year. Many had hoped for a face-off between her and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.

But Rahul Gandhi, who was heading the party that time, entrusted her with rejuvenating the party in Uttar Pradesh as the AICC General Secretary in charge of the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and then as the General Secretary in charge of the entire Uttar Pradesh.

But that effort had crash-landed with the BJP’s massive victory from the state in 2019 and Yogi Adityanath’s triumphant return to power in the state in 2022.

Ms Gandhi Vadra’s then comrade-in-arms, Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was also in charge of Uttar Pradesh, has since joined the BJP.

Ms Gandhi Vadra, a crowd -puller who has represented her mother for years in Raebareli, is seen as the Congress’s big hope for rejuvenation in the state ahead of the national election.