Will Nitish Kumar return to Grand Alliance? Here's what senior RJD leader has to say

Patna, June 04: Even though Nitish Kumar has made it clear that the there are absolutely no problems between the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all kinds of rumours and speculations are flying thick and fast.

First, the JD(U) opted out of the Modi government after being offered just one portfolio. Then, Nitish Kumar expanded his council of ministers. He kept eight for the JD(U), while giving just one for the BJP.

Amid all this, senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, on Monday reportedly said that Nitish Kumar coming back to Grand Alliance (GA) would be a good option.

"If Nitish Kumar comes to our side along with other regional parties, it will help beat BJP. In politics, anything can happen. Nobody has given anything in writing that Nitish Kumar cannot return to GA," said Singh, who has been a strong advocate of all regional parties joining hands to stop the BJP, a Hindustan Times report said.

Nitish, however, attended Modi's swearing-in ceremony last week at Rashtrapati Bhavan and also told media that he was not thinking much over ministerial berth, stressing that his party was fully in the NDA.

Even then, the JD(U) minced no words and said they decided against joining the Modi ministry as allies were not given "proportional representation" in the cabinet.

JD(U) won 16 of the 17 seats it had contested from Bihar. The BJP and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won all 17 seats and six seats, respectively, which they contested, giving the NDA 39 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. In the 2015 Bihar assembly polls, BJP fought against a Congress-RJD-JD(U) combine and fared badly. In 2017, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar switched side to the BJP-led NDA, ousting the Congress-RJD combine. In the 243-seat Bihar assembly, the RJD is the largest party with 79 seats, followed by the JD(U) (73 seats), the BJP (55 seats) and the Congress (27 seats).