The 2013 Breakup: When Nitish Kumar Walked Away From BJP, Narendra Modi

It began with a handshake on a packed stage and ended with a cheque returned and a 17-year alliance in ruins. The story of Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) between 2009 and 2014 reads like a political novella: moments of public warmth, private misgivings, and finally a break-up that reshaped Bihar's politics.

On May 10, 2009, at an NDA rally in Ludhiana, cameras caught Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, striding across the dais to grasp Nitish Kumar's hand and lift it high. To an outsider, it was a routine act of bonhomie. To Nitish, it felt like a trap.

Back in the car, furious, he accused his aides of engineering a moment designed to humiliate him. "All of this is deliberate, part of a design," he fumed, as per Sankarshan Thakur's book, The Brothers Bihari. The photograph, he believed, would be used again and again, and it was.

The Ludhiana image returned to haunt the relationship three years later in a way no one in either camp predicted. In June 2010, as the BJP held its national executive in Patna, full-page advertisements in local dailies carried that very photograph under a headline thanking Narendra Modi for a Rs 5 crore donation for Kosi flood relief. The picture, to Nitish, was an insult, making him look small in public despite working with the BJP for almost two decades. He cancelled a state dinner for BJP leaders, sent back the donation, and ordered an inquiry.

Over time, small grievances piled up. Modi's rapid rise in Gujarat and the BJP's push to make him a national figure worried Nitish.

A practical politician focused on development, secularism, and honesty, Nitish also carefully managed Bihar's caste and minority alliances. Modi's growing national role threatened the delicate balance Nitish had built with the "three Ms"- Minorities, Most Backward Classes, and Mahadalits - vital to his political survival.

Political math became the main reason for the split. The immediate trigger was not one single event but a string of them: Narendra Modi's appointment as head of the BJP's 2014 election campaign committee in June 2013; the growing chorus inside the BJP that Modi would be the party's prime ministerial face; and, perhaps most painfully for Nitish, a sense that his party's influence inside the NDA was being steadily eroded. On June 16, 2013, after "due deliberations," the Janata Dal (United) formally broke the 17-year alliance with the BJP.

After the split, Nitish accused the BJP of "betrayal" and of sidelining veteran leaders like LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He insisted the decision was not taken hastily.

"Further waiting over it would have been cheating oneself," he said, arguing that the BJP's central leadership offered no assurances about how allies would be treated in the "new era." Nitish portrayed the split as a principled stand against a party that, he said, had begun to forget the culture of respecting elders and collaborative politics.

Nitish's decisions were influenced by electoral setbacks, like the Maharajganj bypoll loss, and fears that Modi's rising national profile would weaken his carefully built minority and MBC support. After the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, where JD(U) won only two of the 40 seats, Nitish resigned as Chief Minister, taking responsibility for the poor performance.

After the 2013 split with the BJP, Nitish Kumar allied with the RJD and Congress to form the Mahagathbandhan, winning the 2015 Bihar elections. He resigned in 2017 amid corruption allegations against Tejashwi Yadav and rejoined the BJP-led NDA.

The alliance lasted through 2019, but in 2022, he again left the NDA over its "authoritarian tendencies", joining the opposition Grand Alliance. By January 2024, citing delays and leadership issues within the opposition, Nitish returned to the NDA and was sworn in as Chief Minister for the ninth time.

Bihar now braces for a fierce 2025 battle, with Nitish at the forefront and the RJD bankings its hopes on Tejashwi Yadav.