Nitish Kumar, the chief of the Janata Dal (United) party has again broken the alliance, and this time with Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Bihar Chief Minister on Tuesday resigned after breaking his alliance with the BJP. Simultaneously, the Bihar opposition-Congress party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and the Left have declared open support for Kumar and his JD (U). Kumar, who had quit the Congress-RJD alliance in 2017, on Tuesday told the RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav (son of veteran leader Lalu Yadav) ‘to begin a new chapter.
If one looks at Nitish Kumar’s political career, the JD(U) leader is known for his “break-ups and patch-ups” politics. Here’s a look at Kumar’s political journey:
- 1989: At this time, Nitish Kumar supported RJD chief Lalu Yadav as leader of the opposition in the Bihar Assembly
- 1994: He broke off with Lalu Yadav and floated the Samata party with George Fernandes
- 1996: Nitish Kukar joined hands with the BJP. During that time, Janata Dal President Sharad Yadav and Lalu Yadav had a spat and therefore Yadav formed his party called RJD.
- 2003: the Samata party merged with Janata Dal while continuing an alliance with the BJP. The JD(U) was formed with Kumar at the helm
- 2005: JD(U)-BJP alliance came into power
- 2010: Nitish Kumar again came into power with his ally, the BJP, and again became the chief minister.
- 2013: Kumar broke ties with BJP in 2013 and joined RJD and the Congress alliance.
- 2017: The Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) won the 2017 polls, but collapsed within two years over Lalu Yadav’s son Tejashwi Yadav’s cropping up in a money laundering case. Kumar broke the alliance.
- 2022: He joined hands with the BJP and became the chief minister.
However, on Tuesday, he again left the BJP-led NDA alliance. And, he is ready to form a government with the support of RJD, Congress and the Left.
After tendering his resignation, Nitish Kumar left the Raj Bhavan and arrived at the residence of Rabri Devi, wife of Lalu Yadav, in Patna. All MLAs and MPs of the party supported Kumar’s decision and said that they were with him. They also asserted that they will continue to support Kumar in his decision.
In the state assembly, which has an effective strength of 242, requiring 121 MLAs for a majority, the RJD has the highest number of 79 MLAs followed by the BJP (77) and the JD(U) with 44. The JD(U) also enjoys the support of four MLAs of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and an Independent. The Congress has 19 MLAs while the CPIML(L) has 12 and CPI and CPI(M) have two each. Besides, one MLA belongs to Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM.
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