Nitish Kumar’s shuffle of 3 C cards: A tale of his flip-flop-flips in ties with BJP, RJD | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
When Nitish had severed ties with the BJP in 2013, it was on the ground that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) should have a leader with a "clean and secular image"
The Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) supremo, Nitish Kumar, would often talk of “triple C’s (crime, corruption and communalism)” as the core guidance principle of his governance model and a bit of his party’s ideology too. And very often, he would choose to switch between two C’s – corruption and communalism.
When Nitish had severed ties with the BJP in 2013, it was on the ground that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) should have a leader with a “clean and secular image”. He had then parted ways when it became clear that the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was going to be the BJP-led NDA’s Prime Ministerial face for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
After walking out of the NDA then, Nitish had given a call for “Sangh-mukt Bharat”. Nitish had also gone on to declare that “mitti mein mil jayenge, BJP ke saath wapas nahi jayenge (I would prefer to be reduced to dust rather than going back to BJP)”.
In the run-up to the November 2015 elections to the 243-member state Assembly, Nitish joined hands with the arch rival Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress and some other smaller parties to form a “Grand Alliance” which won 178 seats, with Nitish again taking over as the CM. The astute JD(U) stalwart was then accused of dumping one C – communalism – for another C – corruption – given the point that Lalu had continued to be under the fodder scam cloud. In mid-2017, the CBI conducted raids at Lalu’s premises in an alleged IRCTC scam in whichthe then Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu’s son, was also named as one of the accused for allegedly being a beneficiary of the land transfers from the RJD supporters for railway jobs.
As Tejashwi was Nitish’s deputy, the latter wanted him to explain his position in public and had also expected him to resign. The RJD saw a plot in it to cause embarrassment for the party and taint its image further. By then Nitish had decided that he would return to the NDA. He made one final call to Lalu to inform him about his decision. A stunned Lalu could tell him nothing except, with resignation, that “So you are going.”
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