First, he shruggs off Narendra Modi and comments on BJP about ‘him and Modi (not a good person among Muslims) holding hands’ poster… Then he doesn’t attend the BJP meeting which he was scheduled to. Then returns five crore rupees to Gujrat (ruled by Modi) which the state gave as flood relief fund…
Nitish Kumar has shown and perhaps himself believes that he and his party JD(U) can pull off the elections sigularly without any alliance. He has cleverly taken projects of physical importance such as building roads, bridges, electrification of villages, school buildings etc. which have visibility.
People of other state are going gaga over his abilities and his model of development is considered ideal everywhere. The people in state as well like him as the CM because after a long span of time ‘anything is happening’ in Bihar.
Nitish doesn’t want to lose a huge chunk of volatile Muslim voters who do mass voting and change their mind at the last moment. Narendra Modi, post Godhra riots, doesn’t command a great image among them. And he will get some Muslim votes only when he is the lone candidate and one has to vote in any case!
That’s why Nitish is suddenly changing his stance. Taking himself away from Modi will keep him in the Muslim voter’s option bag. He is deliberately doing it as he has got a hint that he won’t need much support to form a government next year.
The good thing is that he is not vocal about being secular rather he is sending some messages to all who can understand.
The aam junta us perplexed that why is he shying away from BJP! But there is a greater politics going on on the name of secularism.