It may just be an attempt to publicise their opposition to the BJP forming a government in Karnataka without having the requisite numbers, but the RJD in Bihar and Congress in Goa demanded on Thursday that they be invited to form the governments in these states as they were the single largest party.
All 16 MLAs of the Congress in Goa will be marching to the Raj Bhavan on Friday and have claimed they would parade themselves in front of the governor to prove their numbers in the 40-member Assembly. The current BJP-led coalition government was formed after two days of drama in March 2017, despite the Congress' attempt to stitch together a coalition. The Congress had then accused Goa Governor Mridula Sinha of acting in favour of the BJP.
While there appears to be no threat to the current BJP-led coalition government in Goa, there has been unease among coalition partners over the continued uncertainty over the health of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who has been away in the US for treatment since March. The Congress will likely attempt to tap into that sense of insecurity.
In Bihar, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, son of party founder Lalu Prasad Yadav, said the party would hold a dharna on Friday to protest what it called the “murder of democracy” in Karnataka. He added that he would request the governor to to dissolve the current JD(U)-BJP government and invite the RJD to form the government.
The RJD with 80 MLAs had formed a coalition government with the JD(U), which had 71 MLAs after winning the 2015 election, before Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ended the alliance in 2017 and returned to the BJP.
Like in Goa, the RJD will attempt to use the 'largest party' claim to expose fissures in the JD(U)-BJP government, particularly over communal incidents in recent months.