Bihar CM Nitish Kumar reiterates he made a mistake twice going with RJD

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar rejects RJD, vows to stick with old partner, BJP, amid political turmoil.

Days after Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad said INDIA bloc is ready to welcome him in its fold, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday (January 5, 2025) said he made a mistake twice going with the RJD and will not repeat it. The Janata Dal (United) chief was interacting with reporters during his ongoing Pragati Yatra in Muzaffarpur.

“I went here and there by mistake. now I will not go anywhere. I have returned to my old partner,” Mr. Kumar said after meeting a self-help group member, also called Jeevika Didi in the State.

He went on to attack the RJD claiming that the RJD did not do any work but kept getting coverage in newspapers. Taking credit for doing work for women empowerment, he claimed that women never roamed outside after sunset during the RJD regime.

“I worked for every section, be it women, men, all castes, Hindus, Muslims, backward classes, extremely backward classes, dalits and mahadalits,” Mr. Kumar said. He was accompanied by senior cabinet colleague Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On January 1, In an interview to a local news channel, Mr. Prasad said, “If he [Nitish Kumar] joins us, we will definitely welcome him. We will also forgive his past mistakes and keep him with us. We will sit and work together. Every time we take the right decision but he is not able to take the right decision. He runs away and leaves the alliance.”

Mr. Kumar has the history of switching sides, and so far he has done it four times.

He first switched sides in 2013 after breaking a 17-year alliance with the BJP. In 2015, he fought the Assembly elections in alliance with the RJD. However, following allegations of corruption against RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, he broke the alliance in 2017 and returned to the BJP. He fought both 2019 Lok Sabha and 2020 Assembly elections with the BJP. In 2022, he again quit the NDA and joined hands with the RJD. In January 2024, he again left the RJD and formed government in the State with the BJP.