Another RJD MLA sits with ruling side members in Bihar assembly

Patna: RJD MLA Bharat Bind on Friday sat with members of the ruling NDA inside the Bihar assembly, becoming the fifth legislator to have deserted the party in less than a month.

Bind, who represents Bhabua in Kaimur district, reached the Vidhan Sabha premises in the post-lunch session with Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who is also the state BJP president.

He entered the House with Murari Gautam, a former minister who had turned his back on Congress a couple of days ago, and the two sat together.

The development comes on the final day of the budget session when the House was through with legislative business and taking up private members' bills.

Earlier, RJD MLAs Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi and Prahlad Yadav had switched over to the ruling side, voting against party leader and the then Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary in a no-confidence motion, and supporting the NDA in the trust vote.

Besides, on Wednesday, RJD MLA Sangita Kumari, along with Murari Gautam and Siddharth Saurav of the Congress, were felicitated inside the premises by Samrat Choudhary, whom they followed into the assembly hall, and amid thumping of desks in approval by NDA members, they sat beside the ruling coalition MLAs.

However, the two Congress MLAs' disqualification has been sought by the party which has called them "traitors".

The RJD has also said it will approach the Speaker seeking disqualification of its turncoats while warning Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U) and returned to the NDA only last month, that the BJP was now carrying out the proverbial "operation lotus" in Bihar.

The BJP has, meanwhile, maintained that it had no role in the defections and MLAs were quitting Congress and RJD out of "disgust with a dynastic leadership".

Following the recent spate of defections, the NDA has come to enjoy the support of 135 MLAs in the 243-member assembly.