PATNA, April 24 -- The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by chief minister Samrat Choudhary will seek the vote of confidence in a special session of the Bihar Assembly on Friday (today). According to the Vidhan Sabha schedule, Speaker Prem Kumar will first make introductory remarks and then chief minister Samrat Choudhary will propose that "this Assembly expresses faith in the current Council of Ministers." The leaders will get an opportunity to speak ahead of the confidence vote. That is the main agenda for the day. The session will conclude with obituary references. With a brute majority of 201, the NDA government does not have any problem winning the confidence vote, which is a mere formality since a new leader is heading the Bihar government after a long time following the resignation of longstanding CM, Nitish Kumar. However, observers of state politics say it would be interesting to note whether the Samrat government ends up swelling its tally of 201 as four Opposition members switched allegiance during the Rajya Sabha elections in March and it would not be surprising if they chose to stay with the new government. If the NDA manages to make inroads into the Opposition camp, the additional votes will clearly send a strong message and further hurt the morale of the Opposition, say pundits. During the trust vote sought by the Nitish government in 2024 after his last political swap to join the NDA, three legislators of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) voted in favour of the government amid a walkout by all non-NDA MLAs. Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who also holds the state parliamentary affairs portfolio, said that the government will get a strong vote of confidence. "The government is taking forward the policy line of former CM Nitish Kumar, who transformed the state and will strive to complete the unfinished work of the previous government," he added. On December 1, the inaugural session of the 18th Vidhan Sabha convened, but the Nitish government did not seek a trust vote due to the brute majority it enjoyed and the Speaker's unanimous election clearly underlined it. "The NDA will not have any problem in the floor test. With a strength of mere 35 legislators, the Opposition can do nothing," said JD(U) legislature party leader Shravan Kumar. The trust vote is sought in keeping with the spirit of Article 164(2) of the Constitution, which specifies that the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly. The Samrat Cabinet currently has a strength of just three --- with two Deputy CMs, Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav. Both are from the JD(U). Deputy CM Vijay Choudhary said that the cabinet expansion will take place soon. In Bihar, the cabinet can have a maximum of 36 ministers, including the CM, but the Nitish cabinet also worked with a truncated strength of 26. In the Bihar Assembly, the BJP is the largest party with 89 members, followed by JD(U) with 84 and LJP with 19. The RJD emerged as the largest party in 2020; it has now managed to get just 25 seats to be eligible for the LoP position, while the NDA enjoys a brute majority with 201 seats in the 243-member House....