Will Nitish Kumar Walk Out Of The Alliance With The BJP?
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-08-08 14:14:18
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
If one were
to use the two-liners used during elections in Bihar, the latest tiff between
the alliance partners - the JD(U) and the BJP - can be best summed up as "RCP
Singh to bahana hai, JD(U) ko bus jaana hai". The JD(U), it seems, has made up
its mind to leave the alliance with the BJP. Hence, it is using former Union
minister RCP Singh's exit as an excuse and saying that the BJP is trying to
repeat the Chirag model once again. But the party has always perceived Singh as
Amit Shah's man and that is why it did not extend his Rajya Sabha term which forced
him to resign from the Union cabinet.
JD(U) chief
Lalan Singh had yesterday said that RCP Singh's exit had shades of the
conspiracy the BJP allegedly hatched in 2020 assembly elections by using Chirag
Paswan as a result of which the JD(U) seats went down drastically. The party
has taken it as an affront and has launched an all out attack on the BJP. The
relations between the two alliance partners, already on the edge for the last
couple of months, have now reportedly inched towards the point of no return.
Nitish
Kumar is reportedly so miffed with the BJP, more so after the way it split the
Shiv Sena, that he is wary of an Operation Lotus in Bihar. He knows that as of
now, he has enough numbers to leave the alliance with the BJP and form another
one with Tejasvi Yadav's RJD and the Congress. Their combined strength will
give them a majority. But if the BJP manages to split the JD(U), the numbers will
go down and it will not be possible for him to remain chief minister.
That is why
Nitish has called a meeting of all his party legislators on Tuesday and he is expected
to announce his next step. Kumar knows that to keep the flock together, he
needs to have majority and remain in government. The lure of office is the best
carrot to keep MLAs together. If he has had back channel talks with the RJD and
the Congress (which he must have otherwise he would not have been so
belligerent), Kumar will most likely end his alliance with the BJP tomorrow.
