Patna, March 24 : Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha announced formal merger of Vikas Sheel Insan party (VIP) legislator party with the BJP legislator party in the Lower house on Thursday. While making this announcement, the speaker said that in view of the request made by all the three MLAs of VIP the party stands merged with the BJP from March 23. He informed that with this decision MLA Swarna Singh from Gaura Bauram, Mi Lal Yadav MLA from Alinagar and Raju Kumar Singh MLA from Sahebganj would now be considered as members of BJP in the state assembly. With this, the BJP became the largest party in the lower house as its strength increased to 77 from 74. All the three MLAs had called on Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha and informed him about their decision to desert the VIP and join BJP. Earlier all the three MLAs on Wednesday had joined BJP, deserting VIP and had accepted the membership of BJP. While addressing the related function in the party office, state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal had said that VIP president Mukesh Sahni had stabbed in the back of BJP by fielding candidate against it in the by-election for Bochaha assembly seat despite being aware of the fact that BJP had fielded Baby Kumari from Bochaha seat. Jaiswal described it as the last nail leading to severing the ties between two parties. Meanwhile, VIP president Mukesh Sahni, MLC and Animal Husbandry Minister in the Nitish cabinet asserted that he would not resign from the cabinet. It was the prerogative of Chief Minister Kumar to decide whether he would continue in the cabinet. RS ARN
