What's Behind Nitish Kumar's Rocky Journey With Bihar Ally BJP

Even though on record the Bihar Chief Minister says they are all working together, there's clearly a huge trust deficit.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is likely to deny another Rajya Sabha term to Union Minister and once number two in his party Ramchandra Prasad Singh. Mr Singh is Nitish Kumar's emissary to alliance partner BJP and is considered close to several BJP leaders including its Bihar in charge Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav.

Mr Singh seems to be paying the price for several lapses, including his close proximity to BJP which has put his loyalty to Nitish Kumar in question. The Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) chief, in a very unusual move, has armed himself with a resolution by party legislators to choose the party's Rajya Sabha candidate before he makes this formal announcement. He has never done this in the past, even when his party used to send four candidates to the upper house of the Parliament.

Right before taking a formal decision in this regard which will be announced later, Mr Kumar's comments on the recent Central Bureau of Investigation raids on his biggest rival Lalu Prasad Yadav seem like a clear rebuff to the BJP which was claiming the case on Mr Yadav was because of the efforts of Nitish Kumar's party. Mr Kumar said he doesn't know about the raids and only they (CBI) can explain it. The BJP has, however, said the JD(U) has been raising its voice on the case, an alleged "land for jobs" scam, since 2008 when it was first raised by now JD(U) National President Rajiv Ranjan "Lalan" Singh and Shivanand Tiwari, who's now in Mr Yadav's party Rashtriya Janata Dal but was MP from Mr Kumar's party at that time.

In what seems like an attempt to embarrass Nitish Kumar, senior BJP leader Sushil Modi has been making statements almost every day crediting Lalan Singh, Shivanand Tiwari, and Sharad Yadav (also an RJD leader now) with highlighting the alleged scam.