By Rajdeep Sardesai
Allied with the BJP of Vajpayeeji which believed in constitutional values. As a secular leader, I cannot be part of a BJP led by Narendra Modi which wants to win votes by creating a Hindu-Muslim divide.” Nitish Kumar in June 2013 after breaking alliance with BJP.
“When I started my political career, I had a desire to become a member of both Houses of the state legislature as well as both Houses of Parliament.” Nitish Kumar in March 2026 after announcing his decision to enter Rajya Sabha.
Thirteen years is a long time in Indian politics. In this period, the descent of Nitish Kumar from being seen as a potential challenger to Modi a decade ago to now being pushed into a Marg Darshak Mandal-like ‘retirement home’ in a Modi-centric political universe exemplifies the dramatic power and ideological shift in which the secular-communal vocabulary no longer carries any moral weight.
In the winter of 2005, a soft-spoken engineer-turned-politician from Bakhtiarpur took charge of a state widely dismissed as India’s symbol of political decay. Over the next two decades, Nitish Kumar would reinvent Bihar’s politics and, even more impressively, reinvent himself multiple times to stay in power.
Few leaders in contemporary India have switched alliances as often and survived. Yet the latest twist in the Nitish Kumar saga may finally signal the end of that remarkable exercise in political gymnastics.
The manner in which he has been nudged towards Rajya Sabha and away from Patna’s power corridors marks the quietest of exits for a man who dominated Bihar politics for nearly twenty years.
For the BJP, Bihar has long been unfinished business. Despite its national dominance, the party never quite managed to control the state on its own terms, largely because the BJP could never shake off its upper caste image in a ‘Mandalised’ political milieu.
As a symbol of backward caste assertion, Nitish Kumar was both an asset and a limitation: a credible governance-focused ally who expanded the coalition’s social base, but also a regional leader whose stature prevented the BJP from fully claiming the political space.
Over time, however, the numbers began to change. Election after election, BJP’s vote share in Bihar crept upward. The party that once played junior partner to JD(U) gradually emerged as the bigger force within the alliance.
For the BJP leadership, the long-term objective was clear—turn Bihar into a state where the party could eventually stand on its own feet. But removing Nitish Kumar abruptly was politically risky. His support amongst Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) and women was crucial to guaranteeing a sweeping election victory in November 2025.
When Nitish teamed up with his original Mandal co-traveller Lalu Prasad in 2015, the BJP was pushed to the margins.
Now, by gently easing Nitish Kumar into Rajya Sabha—a dignified but largely peripheral role in state politics—the BJP achieves two goals simultaneously. It paves the way for the BJP to dominate Bihar’s power structure while avoiding the spectacle of a messy exit. In effect, it resembles a soft political coup.
Such manoeuvres are hardly new in Indian politics. Leaders who outlive their strategic usefulness are often offered graceful exits—governorships, parliamentary positions or advisory roles.
But the Bihar episode carries a wider significance because it reflects the operating style of the BJP under Modi and Amit Shah. The party today functions as a highly centralised electoral machine anchored in a powerful national leadership.
Regional allies are welcome, even necessary at times. But they are rarely treated as permanent stakeholders in power.
Instead, alliances tend to follow a predictable arc. First comes partnership. Then comes organisational expansion by the larger party. Eventually, when the balance of power shifts, the partner is quietly edged aside.
From the Assam Gano Parishad in Assam to Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party in Goa, the BJP has exploited and then diminished regional parties for its own growth.
Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) illustrates this pattern. The larger question now is what message this sends to other allies within the ruling coalition.
Today’s NDA includes powerful regional players—from Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh to AIADMK in poll-bound Tamil Nadu and other smaller but strategically important partners across the country. Many of them are vital for parliamentary arithmetic.
Yet they also understand that the BJP’s long-term ambition is to grow at the expense of its allies wherever possible. That creates an uneasy equilibrium.
For regional leaders, aligning with the BJP offers immediate advantages: access to the political authority of the central government and the formidable electoral machinery that accompanies it. And more contentiously, protection from enforcement action by central agencies.
But it also carries an inherent risk—that the alliance may gradually shrink their own political space. Nitish Kumar is simply the latest illustration of this “use and expand” strategy.
But beyond the electoral arithmetic lies a larger political moment. For two decades, Nitish Kumar represented a model of regional leadership that could negotiate with national parties from a position of strength. His exit from Bihar’s political stage via the Rajya Sabha symbolises the fading of that era.
In today’s politics, the centre of gravity has clearly shifted toward the national party with the bigger machine, the deeper resources and the stronger central leadership.
Which is why Nitish Kumar’s quiet relocation to Delhi will not just be the retirement of a veteran CM. It is only another reminder that in the BJP’s power calculus, alliances are useful—but rarely permanent.
And in the end, even the most seasoned survivors can find themselves gently shown the door.
Post-script: No one has summed up Nitish Kumar’s amoral politics of serial betrayals and compromise better than the late Sankarshan Thakur, a celebrated chronicler of contemporary Bihar.
“Where once his politics evoked a call to conscience, in the end his conscience was on call,” wrote Thakur.
Tragic but true.
The writer is a senior journalist and author
