This refers to the editorial, “Bihar's political slugfest” (June 29). What was common between the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to come together and form a grand alliance along with another adversary, the Congress, against the BJP before the Bihar Assembly election, except the hollow slogan of secularismIJ Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made the JD(U) break its 17-year old alliance with the BJP on the issue of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 lok Sabha election. He had to take support of lalu Prasad's RJD to save his Government. The JD(U), therefore, became a part of the anti-BJP mahagathbandhan in the 2015 Bihar Assembly election, in which the RJD won the maximum seats.
However, Nitish Kumar again became the Chief Minister of the coalition Government as lalu Prasad could not be the Chief Minister due to legal hurdles. Nitish Kumar had to accommodate lalu Prasad's sons as Ministers in his Cabinet. Senior JD(U) leader KC Tyagi's statement that his party had a greater level of comfort with the BJP than with its current partners, tells all about the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance. It is time for Nitish Kumar to look beyond the divide of ideology.