In Bihar, all is not well in the NDA

Not a month has passed in the last eight months, since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was formed in Bihar, when a constituent of the NDA — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM-S) and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) — has not voiced their dissent against the government. The fourth NDA constituent is chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United or JD(U).

So much so that the leading Opposition force, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), has claimed that the government will fall very soon and Tejaswhi Yadav would unfurl the national flag on August 15. Although that was a tall claim and is not happening, the RJD claims shows the unease in NDA and the rifts between allies and Kumar, who has, barring one brief interregnum in 2014-15, been in power for 16 years.

HAM-S president and former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, in January 2021, created a flutter in NDA by saying Tejashwi Yadav is future of Bihar and had a meeting with Tej Pratap Yadav in June. The same month, he had demanded the formation of a “Coordination Committee” within the NDA.

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