Nitish Kumar Ends Alliance With BJP, Again

Aug 09, 2022

PATNA: Nitish Kumar has ended his alliance with the BJP in Bihar; he's set to meet the Governor this evening with Tejashwi Yadav, sources said.

Here are the 10 latest developments:

1. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met with his MLAs before coming to his decision on dumping the BJP for a second time. "Expect explosive news," a senior leader from his party said to NDTV ahead of the meeting.

2. A senior source from the BJP who asked not to be named had also warned, "Expecting this alliance to survive is like a very sick patient's family refusing to give up hope."

3. The tension between the two parties hit breakpoint over Nitish Kumar's concerns that Union Minister Amit Shah is working relentlessly to split the Janata Dal (United).

4. To this end, Nitish Kumar blames RCP Singh, a former leader from his own party, for serving as Amit Shah's proxy. RCP Singh quit the JDU on the weekend after his party accused him of deep corruption.

5. In 2017, RCP Singh joined the Union cabinet as the representative of Nitish Kumar's party. The Bihar Chief Minister was upset about being offered only one cabinet position. Yesterday, his closest aide said that RCP Singh had decided to join the centre of his own accord and had informed Nitish Kumar that Amit Shah had said he alone was acceptable as the JDU rep in the cabinet. "Will Amit Shah decide our party's matters?" said Rajeev Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh, who is the president of the JDU.

6. The Rashtriya Janata Dal or RJD, which is Bihar's single-largest party, also met today to discuss the Bihar crisis. The party is headed by Tejashwi Yadav. The party is expected to formally announce its support for Nitish Kumar, reviving an earlier alliance with him (the partnership lasted for less than three years). After that, 32-year-old Tejashwi Yadav is expected to accompany Nitish Kumar at a meeting with the Governor.

7. Till 2017, Tejashwi Yadav was a minister along with his brother in Nitish Kumar's government which had three components: the JDU, Lalu Yadav's party, and the Congress. Nitish Kumar had formed an alliance with them after calling off a decades-long relationship with the BJP.

8. But he accused Tejashwi Yadav and his bother of corruption and used that controversy to end his alliance with 'secular' parties and returned to the BJP.

9. The Congress has also begun a series of meetings in Bihar to decide its stand on possible support to Nitish Kumar.

10. Nitish Kumar is reportedly convinced that Amit Shah wants to repeat the Maharashtra model in Bihar -- Uddhav Thackeray was forced to quit as Chief Minister after Eknath Shinde, a senior leader from his party, the Shiv Sena, instigated a huge revolt in partnership with the BJP. Eknath Shinde was rewarded by the BJP with the post of Maharashtra Chief Minister.