Fifth time in 10 years, Nitish habitual of swapping alliances

Nitish Kumar dissolved the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar after resigning from the post of chief minister on Sunday, and with this he has reached the same stage where he left the NDA on August 9, 2022. This was the fifth time in the last 10 years that he changed alliances.

Kumar had exited the NDA last time after making an allegation on BJP that its leaders were involved in breaking his party. He had pointed fingers at BJP chief J.P. Nadda, who had made a statement in Patna BJP office on July 31, 2022 that all regional parties need to be uprooted from the country.

After he left the NDA then, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that all doors of BJP and NDA were closed for Nitish Kumar. He held a series of rallies in Purnea, Nawada, Sitab Diara, Jhanjharpur, and other places and repeatedly said that all doors of BJP and NDA were closed for Nitish Kumar.

This line was used by several BJP leaders, including Samrat Choudhary, Vijay Kumar Sinha, Giriraj Singh, Sushil Kumar Modi, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and several other leaders of Bihar.

Now as the situation once again was heading for a change in Bihar, Sushil Modi claimed that doors cannot be closed permanently. "It opens according to the situation," he said.

With the new alliance, Nitish Kumar is going to take oath as the chief minister of Bihar for the ninth time., His deputies will be Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha, who were the most vocal faces against Nitish Kumar from August 9, 2022 till the last week. Samrat Choudhary had also taken the oath to remove the turban only after removing Nitish Kumar from the post of chief minister.

Nitish Kumar, after the resignation, targeted the leaders of INDIA bloc.

“I was instrumental in the formation of INDI alliance in 2022 but they were not working on It. The progress of INDI Alliance was not according to our expectation. Then, I decided to exit from it,” Kumar said.

“We were doing many public oriented programmes but they (RJD and Congress) were not working as per our expectation. Working with them was getting tough for me and hence I resigned from the post of chief minister and also dissolved the government,” Kumar said.

“Now, we will discuss with the leaders of new alliance partners to decide the next step,” he said.

Nitish Kumar's switching the boats to and fro from RJD to BJP started 10 years ago when he broke the alliance with NDA after BJP projected Narendra Modi as a prime ministerial candidate in 2014. Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) contested the election alone and won only two seats. Due to his dismal performance, he resigned from the post of chief minister on moral ground and made Jitan Ram Manjhi the chief minister in 2014.

After nine months, Nitish Kumar removed Manjhi from the post of chief minister and took the power in his own hand.

He formed the alliance with RJD in 2015 Assembly election and defeated BJP convincingly. He became the chief minister of Mahagathbandhan despite being the younger partner in it with 69 seats and RJD had 80 seats. He broke the alliance with RJD in 2017 after the name of Tejashwi Yadav came in the charge sheet of land-for-job scam. Nitish Kumar again formed the government with the help of BJP then.

Nitish Kumar contested the 2020 Assembly election under the umbrella of NDA with BJP HAM-S and VIP being the alliance partners. The JD(U) underperformed with just 43 MLAs winning. As Nitish Kumar is a hard bargainer, he became the chief minister again.

Kumar broke the alliance with BJP in August 2022 and formed the government with RJD. He took the oath as the chief minister of Bihar.