Bihar political crisis: Nitish Kumar quits NDA, joins Grand Alliance

Bihar Chief Minister (CM) Nitish Kumar on Tuesday broke the alliance between his party, the Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging ‘conspiracy’ by the BJP to break the JD(U) and resigned as CM. He reached out to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and other Opposition parties, including the Congress, which have agreed to support him.

Nitish and Tejashwi Yadav will take oath as Bihar chief minister and deputy CM, respectively, at 2 pm on Wednesday, officials said.

All Opposition parties, except for the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), or CPI (ML), will join the Bihar government, adding up to 164 Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in a House of 243. In a virtually bloodless coup, Nitish, whose party has just 45 MLAs, not only swapped alliance partners, but also became a candidate for a national role in the Opposition in one fell stroke, with his party colleague Upendra Kushwaha saying: ‘Hasten ahead, Nitishji, the nation awaits you’.

On Tuesday morning, Nitish called a meeting of all elected representatives of the JD(U) and said he pre-empted a conspiracy by the BJP to break his party.

“He did not speak for long. But we told him the BJP has been deriding us at every stage. Around 25 MLAs spoke and each one said he should break the alliance,” said a JD(U) MLA who attended the meeting.

Nitish then met RJD leaders, including Tejashwi Yadav, to get down to the real nitty-gritty of further government formation. He then met the Governor and handed over his resignation as CM. With his resignation, the entire Bihar Council of Ministers — including all BJP ministers — were deemed to have quit.

All Opposition MLAs have been asked to stay in Patna for the next 72 hours. A session of the Assembly is expected to be called in the next few days where the JD(U) legislature party will propose Nitish as CM again — a claim that has the written support (letter with the Governor) of 164 MLAs.

Nitish’s new alliance partners are no strangers to him: he has been associated with the RJD and was in alliance with the party until five years ago. But he will retain the top job.

“He has certainly not changed alliance partners to crown Tejashwi as CM,” RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari told Business Standard, adding, “But we are placing no conditions. We believe he will be fair”.

Tejashwi is expected to get the Home portfolio that Nitish had kept with him in the BJP alliance government. Earlier, Tejashwi had held the Public Works Department portfolio. Every party will get ministership in proportion to its strength. Effectively, this means Nitish will be presiding over a government that will be dominated by the RJD.

The new government’s biggest priority will be to replace the Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha (BJP) with one of its own, possibly from the Congress. Sinha and Nitish have had running battles — one of the reasons that influenced the parting with the BJP.

Veteran Socialist Bhakta Charan Das, sent by the Congress as observer, said: “Nitish has left the BJP. That is enough for us. We will give him unconditional support. This is an opportunity for dialogue and further possibilities.”

Meanwhile, the BJP held its own meetings at the residence of Deputy CM Tarkishor Sinha. Home Minister Amit Shah called on Nitish and spoke to him for six/seven minutes.

Sanjay Jaiswal, state president of the Bihar BJP, told Business Standard that the BJP will sit in Opposition, but will win a majority in the next election.

“It is completely against the mandate that BJP and JD(U) got. It was because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s generosity that although the BJP got 74 seats, Nitish, with a handful of seats, was able to become CM. He quit the Grand Alliance in 2017 because there were allegations of corruption. At that time, Lalan Singh was the one who had disclosed the mall-related land scam. Where are those charges now?” asked Jaiswal.

Dipankar Bhattacharya, the national general secretary of CPI (ML), said the party will support Nitish without joining the government. “Bihar should inspire a broader and more effective social and political realignment of forces against the BJP’s game plan of concentrating all powers and turning India into a single-party state. The Bihar incident will have a greater impact against the BJP across North India,” he said.

“The BJP wants to impose one-party rule in India and Shah has bragged about the BJP ruling India for the next four decades. This was a loud warning signal to BJP’s allies. Tuesday’s Bihar developments show Nitish has read the signals correctly,” he observed.