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The Home Minister gave a solemn assurance to the nation that the imposition of President's rule was temporary and transient and was intended to explore the possibility of forming a popular Government. According to the petitioners, process of realignment of forces was set in motion and several political parties and independent MLAs re-considered their position in terms of their commitment to provide a majority Government in deference to the popular wishes of the people and announced support to the NDA led by Shri Nitish Kumar. First such announcement was made by the entire group of 17 independent MLAs on 8th April, 2005. The signed declaration was released by these MLAs to the media. With the support of 17 independent MLAs the support base of the NDA rose to 109 MLAs. Later on, it rose to 115 MLAs with the declaration of support by the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Governor of Bihar sent a report on 27th April, 2005 to the President of India, inter alia, stating that the newspaper reports and other reports gathered through meeting with various party functionaries/leaders and also intelligence reports received, indicated a trend to gain over elected representatives of the people and various elements within the party and also outside the party being approached through various allurements like money, caste, posts etc., which was a disturbing feature. According to the said report, the situation was fast approaching a scenario wherein if the trend is not arrested immediately the consequent political instability will further give rise to horse trading being practiced by various political parties/groups trying to allure elected MLAs. That it would not be possible to contain the situation without giving the people another opportunity to give their mandate through a fresh poll. The report is reproduced below in its entirety.