All Eyes On Kingmaker Nitish | Here Is A Look At The Past Instances Of Bihar CM’s ‘Flip-Flops’

BJP’s inability to win a majority on its own has placed allies like Naidu and Nitish in the driver's seat. Although the NDA comfortably surpasses the majority mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha, Nitish Kumar has already begun tough negotiations with the BJP, according to sources. However, the Bihar CM has a history of switching sides. Here's a look at Nitish’s past political 'flip-flops'. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, JDU went solo and won just 2 seats. Despite the poor performance, Nitish formed a grand alliance with RJD. The 'Mahagathbandhan' steamrolled BJP, and Nitish became CM despite getting fewer seats. After corruption charges were leveled against Tejashwi Yadav, Nitish dumped the RJD alliance and joined hands with BJP, retaining his CM seat. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP won 22 seats in Bihar. However, to accommodate Nitish in the NDA, BJP contested only 17 seats in the 2019 elections. During the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, BJP decided to continue its alliance with JDU, even at the cost of losing Chirag Paswan's LJP as an ally. Despite JDU winning only 45 seats, far fewer than BJP and RJD, a BJP-JDU-led government was formed, and Nitish remained CM. Citing 'differences' with BJP, Nitish broke the alliance in 2022 and realigned with RJD. He was a key proponent of the national grand opposition alliance, which later became known as the INDI Alliance. However, in January 2024, Nitish rejoined the NDA after splitting from RJD and INDI, citing "unease in the current political set-up" as his reason. Nitish retained his position as CM and convinced BJP to let JDU keep all the seats it won in 2019. With BJP now short of a majority, all eyes are on Nitish Kumar. On June 5th, he participated in the NDA meeting in Delhi. The JDU has already hinted at its demands to remain within the NDA alliance.