Bihar CM breaks its 17 year tie with the BJP

POLITICS\\ Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) ended its 17-year-old alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on June 16, 2013, after days of speculation, marking a major split in the country’s main opposition grouping. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had told Governor D.Y. Patil to sack all the 11 BJP ministers in his government for not performing and had vowed to win the trust vote in the state. Soon after the decision was made public, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav announced he was quitting as the convenor of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). “We are not responsible for ending the alliance. We were pushed to this situation so as not to compromise with our basic principles,” Nitish Kumar said. “We don’t care for the repercussions, we are not worried.” Both, Kumar and Yadav, stated they would not dilute the party’s “basic principles” by which they meant that they would never accept a BJP seemingly led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The JD(U)’s departure forced BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi to demand Nitish Kumar’s resignation while Sushma Swaraj called the divorce “sad and unfortunate”. The initial fights between the BJP and JD-U were triggered by Nitish Kumar's opposition to Narendra Modi and the BJP decision to make the Gujarat chief minister its public face in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Yadav pointed out the difference between the Modi-driven BJP and BJP stars Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.