Four reasons why Nitish Kumar is called 'Paltu Ram' by his political rivals

Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar, 72, is back with the BJP-led NDA.  On Sunday, he resigned as CM, and is now expected to stake claim to form the government with the BJP after severing ties with the RJD. 

This is the fourth time in 11 years that Nitish has switched sides. Sunday's switch deals a body blow to the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Bihar as well as the Opposition INDIA bloc.

2013: Dumped BJP
In June 2013 he severed ties with the BJP, saying NDA should have a leader with a “clean and secular image”, in what was seen as an attack on the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi.

Nitish gave a call for “Sangh-mukt Bharat” and went 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 November 2015, Nitish joined hands with Lalu Prasad-led RJD and the Congress to form the Mahagathbandhan that won 178 seats out of the state’s total 243 seats. 

2017: Dumps RJD
Nitish Kumar dumped RJD over graft allegations emerged against RJD’s Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.

He then goes back to BJP and forms a government. Everything was fine in the NDA till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP won all 17 seats it contested and the JD(U) bagged 16 of the 17 constituencies where it was in the fray.

BJP's move to get Chirag Paswan to contest almost all seats where JD(U) candidates were in the fray didn't go well with Kumar. The LJP factor cut JD(U)’s tally from 71 to 43 seats in the subsequent assembly polls.

With the BJP now an equal partner more than ever before, there was again a growing strain in Nitish’s relations with the BJP leadership as the latter aggressively focused on its organisational growth and its leaders kept firing salvos at the CM on various matters.

2022: Dumps BJP
Nitish returned to RJD and was back in the Mahagathbandhan in August 2022, keeping a hold on the CM’s chair. Early last year, he met leaders such as Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray, in an attempt to bring various anti-BJP parties on a common platform. This led to the India alliance.