The Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duopoly is understood to have decided on welcoming Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar back into the NDA, overruling objections from the Bihar BJP, in its pursuit of a “record victory” in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Nitish, who had taken the initiative to unite the Opposition against Modi, appears poised to break away from the INDIA bloc and realign with the BJP, sources in India’s ruling party said.
In that event, the Janata Dal United leader will be sworn in as Bihar chief minister for the seventh time, this time at the head of an NDA government.
All these possibilities are likely to materialise in a couple of days, the sources said.
Bihar BJP leaders had at a meeting with Shah late on Thursday evening expressed reservations against a realignment with the “unreliable” Nitish. They had claimed the state BJP was in a position to defeat the ruling Grand Alliance of the JDU, RJD, Congress and the Left in an election, and argued that it would be a mistake to trust Nitish again.
Shah, who had previously declared that the BJP’s doors had been “closed forever” to the “turncoat” Nitish, was learnt to have heard them out without speaking his mind. But he later gave the go-ahead for a renewed alliance with the JDU, sources said.
Shah and other senior BJP leaders held a meeting on Friday to work out the details of the realignment
“In politics, doors are never closed permanently. Doors are opened and closed according to the need of the hour,” Bihar BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi, who was present at the meeting with Shah, later said.
Party insiders attributed the decision to renew ties with Nitish to electoral calculations.
Modi is eyeing a return to power for a third straight term with a record margin, hoping to break the highest-ever tally of 414 seats that Rajiv Gandhi had achieved in the December 1984 elections, BJP sources said.
“Riding on Modi’s popularity alone, the BJP can easily win at least half the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. An alliance with Nitish can turn this into a clean sweep for the NDA,” a BJP leader said.
But the biggest political incentive for Modi and Shah seems to have been the possible consequences that a switchover by Nitish would have for Opposition unity.
“Nitish coming out will be a body blow to the INDIA bloc,” a BJP leader said.