Why Nitish Kumar singled out Lalan Singh for JD(U)’s ‘mistake’ of exiting NDA in 2022

Without naming Singh, the CM said, “Beech me gadbad kar diya hamare party ne. Aur yahi baithe hue hain, aap unhi se puchhiye. Ab humlog kabhi uske saath nahi ja sakte hain. Unke khilaf me na humlog lade the 2005 mein. Ek ek kaam hua. Aur saara kaam aapke hith me karenge (My party made a mistake. The person responsible is sitting here. Now we will never align again with the RJD. We fought them in 2005 and ran a successful government. We will continue to work for your welfare).”

Lalan Singh was the JD(U)’s national president in 2022, when the party split with the BJP and joined hands with the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to form the government in Bihar. The JD(U) returned to the NDA in January 2024.

After making the comments from the stage, the CM looked to quickly spare Lalan Singh the blushes, saying his party colleague soon sensed that the “RJD was up to some mischief” and, having realised his folly, tried to rectify his mistake by bringing the JD(U) back to the NDA.

“Singh is Nitish’s long-standing aide. But his alleged proximity to RJD chief Lalu Prasad between 2022 and 2023 reportedly caused the rift with Nitish Kumar. With the JD(U) back in the NDA, Lalan Singh has been trying hard to win the trust of both Nitish and Prime Minister Modi,” said a JD(U) leader. That the equations between Nitish and his former associate had taken a hit became apparent when the Bihar CM decided to return as party president, replacing Lalan, in December 2023, just about a month before the JD(U) returned to the NDA fold.

Since returning to the NDA last year, Nitish has often publicly regretted breaking ties with the ruling alliance in 2022 and reiterated at every available opportunity that the JD(U) was there to stay. The comments about Lalan Singh also appear to be part of the Bihar CM’s attempt to clarify that the decision was not entirely of his making and was a mistake.

At a public meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Patna last month, Nitish assured him that he would “never again” ditch the BJP, having done so “twice by mistake”. In Madhubani, apart from the comments about Singh, the CM also emphasised the long-standing ties between his party and the BJP and said they date back to the 1990s.

Better with NDA on his side

Nitish’s political stock has always gone up whenever he has been with the NDA, and that perhaps explains why he is looking to repeatedly assure the BJP of his commitment to the ruling alliance. He first came to power in Bihar as the NDA’s CM face in the October 2005 Assembly elections that saw the alliance crossing the 130 mark in the 243-member House, with the JD(U) emerging as the senior partner in the alliance.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA got 31 seats, with the JD(U) winning 21 constituencies. The alliance stormed to power in the state the following year, winning 206 of the 243 seats. The JD(U) bagged 115 constituencies, just seven short of the halfway mark of 122.

However, Nitish’s national ambitions and his clash with then Gujarat CM and current PM Narendra Modi caused him to walk out of the BJP-led alliance in June 2013. Contesting the 2014 Lok Sabha elections alone, the JD(U), without the wind of support of the NDA on its back, fared miserably and fell to two seats. Before the Assembly polls the following year, it joined hands with the RJD. Though Nitish returned as CM, his party’s tally had dropped, and he had to contend with a rising politician in Tejashwi Yadav. By the time Nitish got back to the NDA in July 2017, his political value had taken a hit and, being a consummate political survivor, he switched sides twice more.