IANS/Patna

Nitish Kumar yesterday refused to withdraw his resignation as Bihar chief minister, following which the ruling Janata Dal-United legislature party authorised him to elect a new leader.
Kumar quit on Saturday after the party’s abysmal performance in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.
The JD-U was reduced to two seats in the general elections.
“With Nitish Kumar refusing to withdraw his resignation, the JD-U legislature party has unanimously authorised him to elect a new leader to head the government,” party’s state president Vashsisht Narain Singh said at a press conference here.
Singh said a delegation of party leaders, including president Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, will meet Governor D Y Patil evening to stake its claim to form the government.
He said the party has a clear majority in the state assembly.
“There was no danger to the government. Nitish Kumar resigned taking moral responsibility of JD-U’s rout in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
He also said Nitish Kumar will lead the party in the next state assembly polls due in 2015.
On Sunday, Nitish Kumar had sought time until today to reconsider his decision after party workers said they will not accept anyone else and asked him to withdraw the resignation. A senior party leader close to him said Nitish Kumar was adamant and did not want to change his stand.
“By resigning as chief minister, Nitish Kumar played a master stroke that not only reunited the party leaders and workers, but also led to widespread demands by all sections of people across Bihar that he should continue for the sake of development,” the leader said.
JD-U spokesman Neeraj Kumar said the party legislators had expressed full faith in Nitish Kumar and decided to re-elect him as their leader.
The party won only two of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats - against 20 in 2009, when it was in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. It parted ways with the BJP last year ending a 17-year-long alliance.
Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress called for an urgent “understanding” with the JD-U to prevent any further split in “secular” votes.
“We do not rule out an arrangement with the JD-U to consolidate the secular votes in the future,” Bihar Congress leader Premchand Mishra said.
Hinting at a possible realignment between the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the JD-U, the two offspring of the erstwhile Janata Dal, Mishra said “vested interests” should give way to “larger interests” in Bihar, which has 40 Lok Sabha seats.
“If there is any scope for understanding between parties with secular ideologies, it should be exploited. False egos and previous animosity should not stand as obstacles to what can defeat the communal forces,” Mishra said.
The Congress and the RJD, which have an alliance, won only two and four seats respectively despite jointly polling a respectable 28.5% of all votes.