Nitish Kumar set to be elected leader of Grand Alliance

Nov 13: Newly-elected legislators of Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will elect Nitish Kumar as the leader of the legislature party on Saturday following which he will be elected as leader of the legislature party of the Grand Alliance.

"Nitish Kumar will be first elected as leader of the JD-U legislature party by the newly elected legislators at a meeting here on Saturday. After that, he will be elected as the leader of the the legislature party of the grand alliance in a joint meeting of the JD-U,RJD and Congress's legislators," JD-U state president Vashsisht Narain Singh said.

Kumar has already said he will recommend dissolution of the state legislative assembly on November 14 after holding the last meeting of his cabinet. He will stake claim to form his new government after a joint meeting of grand alliance on the same day.

Meanwhile, newly elected legislators of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is holding a meeting here on Friday afternoon to elect their legislature party leader.

All eyes are now on RJD chief Lalu Prasad's younger son Tejaswi Yadav, who was elected from Raghopur assembly seat, as main contender for the post of the party,to play an important role in the grand alliance-led government.

Congress will also held a meeting of its newly elected legislators here on Saturday.

According to JD-U leaders here, Nitish Kumar will again take oath as chief minister on November 20 along with a 36-member council of ministers after the Chhath festival to be celebrated in the third week of November.

Nitish Kumar was declared the chief ministerial candidate by the grand alliance before campaign of the Bihar assembly polls started in September.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad called him 'Dulha' of the grand alliance.

The Grand Alliance routed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently held assembly elections, the results of which were announced on Sunday. 

The RJD emerged as the single largest party with 80 assembly seats, followed by the JD-U with 71 and the Congress with 27 seats.

There will be 16 ministers from Lalu Prasad's RJD, 15 from the JD-U and five from the Congress.