Nitish Kumar quits as Bihar CM

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar submitted his resignation to Governor D.Y. Patil Saturday, a day after his party JD-U suffered a drubbing in the general elections.

An official at the chief minister's residence confirmed to IANS that Nitish Kumar has put in his papers.

Since the Janata Dal-United fared poorly in the Lok Sabha election, there was speculation the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar may fall as party legislators would desert him.

Nitish Kumar has been in the saddle since Nov 24, 2005, and won a second term in the 2010 assembly elections.

The JD-U won only two of the 40 Lok Sabha seats from Bihar. In 2009, it won 20 seats in alliance with the BJP.

This time, the BJP won 22 seats and its allies, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won six and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) won three seats. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won four, while its ally Congress bagged two and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) managed to win one seat.

Another setback for Nitish Kumar was that then JD-U bagged only one of five assembly seats where by-polls were held along with the Lok Sabha polls. The RJD bagged three seats and the BJP took one.

Upbeat over unexpected victory, the Bharatiya Janata Party has already demanded the resignation of Nitish Kumar for his party's rout in polls.

"As chief minister has lost the confidence of people, he should resign with immediate effect owning moral responsibility for the debacle of his party in the state," said senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

Barely two days back, BJP's ally LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan said that after result of the Lok Sabha elections, the Nitish Kumar government would fall as dozens of its legislators would desert him and there will be mid term-polls to the state assembly in November 2014.

Nitish Kumar, an engineer by education, has been an MP for six terms and has also served as a union minister.