Nitish Kumar has been talking to the BJP for over a month.
The 17-month-old alliance between the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal United (JDU) and Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was headed for a breakdown on Saturday evening, in what is going to be the culmination of a week-long political drama in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party joining hands with Kumar to come back to power in the state. The elections in the state are scheduled for November 2025.
It is pertinent to mention that a majority of BJP’s state leaders and workers are against joining hands with Nitish Kumar. They have been maintaining that if joining hands with Kumar is inevitable then it should only happen if Kumar agrees to have a BJP Chief Minister.
A meet of senior state BJP leaders such as Sushil Modi, Nityanand Rai, Samrat Chowdhury, Mangal Pandey, elected MLAs and senior functionaries which started around 5.30 p.m. on Saturday ended at 8 p.m. During this meeting, the participants were asked not to speak to the media and wait for Sunday about the political decisions on whether the BJP would join hands with JDU or not. Sources present in the meeting told The Sunday Guardian said that discussions were taking place between party president J.P. Nadda and Nitish Kumar on the modalities, including the issue of Chief Minister and the Deputy CMs and the number of seats that JDU would get in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
However, it can be stated with certainty that the alliance between JDU and RJD is over and the only question remains to be discussed is whether Kumar will dissolve the Assembly or will accept the conditions that the BJP is putting across.
BJP sources told The Sunday Guardian that two more meetings—one of core members comprising 22 members—would convene a meet on Saturday night and then another meeting of party MLAs and senior functionaries on Sunday morning would take place to decide the future course of action.
The political wheel in Bihar started moving rapidly in Bihar after the Union government announced Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur on 23 January, which was followed by congratulatory tweets by Nitish Kumar.
In his first tweet, Kumar had not thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the decision. However, in the edited tweet that was shared later, he thanked PM Modi for announcing the award for Thakur, a leader from the Extremely Backward Community (EBC). Later, Kumar also issued a media statement saying that Thakur, unlike many leaders, did not promote his children in politics.
This was perceived as an attack on his ally Lalu Prasad Yadav. In response, Rohini Acharya Yadav, the Singapore-based daughter of Lalu, who had donated a kidney to her father last year, put out three tweets, one after the other, questioning the political character of Kumar without naming him. Subsequently, these tweets were deleted by Acharya.
These two developments set the stage for the political play that is likely to end with Kumar moving back to the BJP and doing a political flip-flop for the fourth time in his career that has earned him the sobriquet of “Paltu-ram”.
On 24 January, Kumar had gone to the Raj Bhavan and met Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar. He came out after spending nearly half an hour, which was described as a meeting to discuss appointment of vice chancellors in different universities in the state, a formal process that generally does not last more than a few minutes.
On Saturday evening, Raj Bhawan sources told The Sunday Guardian that the Raj Bhawan officers have been asked to be on “alert mode”, while stating that no appointment has been sought by CM Nitish Kumar with the Governor for Sunday morning. Interestingly, Raj Bhawan secretariat and Bihar government secretariat were kept open on Saturday, a public holiday.
As reported by The Sunday Guardian one month ago (Nitish Kumar’s ‘NDA plans’ spark political speculation in Bihar, 31 December 2023), Kumar was already talking to the BJP to rejoin the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Kumar started exploring this political path as he was “not being given the respect that he deserved” by the I.N.D.I.A bloc leaders. This was also confirmed on Saturday afternoon by Neeraj Kumar, JDU MLC and party’s chief spokesperson, who said that Kumar was not given the respect despite being the one who brought the alliance into existence. Kumar’s attack on the RJD, while referring to the land for cash scam for which the Lalu family is facing questioning, and the possible arrest by the Central agencies, which was the first public attack on the Lalu family by the JDU amidst the opaque political developments, confirmed that things have reached a point of no return between the JDU and the RJD.
RJD and state Congress leaders told The Sunday Guardian that Kumar had stopped responding to calls and communication from their respective leaders since Friday night (25 January) and in the subsequent public meet, he did not speak to Tejashwi Yadav despite being on the same stage. On Saturday morning, ministers from RJD quota returned their official vehicles.
In the multiple surveys that were done by the BJP in the last few months, on the prospect of the party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, it had emerged that the BJP’s tally, if it contests without taking Nitish Kumar, would revolve around 25 seats but would cross 35 seats if Nitish was included.
According to JDU sources the sudden removal of Lalan Singh, aka Ranjan Singh, as the president of the JDU in the last week of December, and the subsequent removal of all close associates of Lalan Singh from the JDU’s national team that was formed last week, were done to facilitate Nitish’s entry to the NDA as Singh reportedly had got too close to Lalu Yadav.
Sources close to Nitish had told The Sunday Guardian last month that the new political alignments will take shape soon after the “Kharmas” period ends on 13 January. Kumar is seen as someone who commands a vote share of 15% that never leaves him. In 2019, the JDU got 21.81% votes, in 2014 it was 15.80% and 24% in 2009.
In the state Assembly, where the magic figure is 122, in a house of 243, the RJD has 79 MLAs, JDU 45 MLAs, BJP 78 MLAs, CPIM-L 12 MLAs, Congress 19 MLAs, HAM(S) 4 MLAs, AIMIM 1 MLA, CPM 2 MLAs, CPI 2 MLAs and there is one Independent MLA. The Grand Alliance till Saturday evening had 159 MLAs.
The JDU, BJP and HAM(S) combine will reach 127 MLAs.