Trouble from allies seems to be mounting for the BJP, especially from its partners in Bihar, where the Assembly election is due next year. While K.C. Tyagi of the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) suddenly resigned from the key role of party chief spokesperson on September 1, days after he made statements distancing the JD(U) from the BJP’s key decisions, including lateral entry into services and the Uniform Civil Code, LJP (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan, who had also issued statements opposing the Centre’s proposals, adopted a reconciliatory tone following a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah after it appeared that the BJP might reopen channels of communication with his estranged uncle, Pashupati Kumar Paras.

Paswan, who proudly claimed himself to be the “Hanuman” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had openly expressed his opinion against a number of decisions of the Modi government in the last two months. In August, when a notification came for lateral entry recruitment of 45 joint secretaries, directors, and deputy secretaries, Paswan said that this was “completely wrong” and that his party was “absolutely not in favour” of it. Paswan, whose party has been pitching for quotas even in the private sector, wants the government to adhere to reservations whenever it issues notifications for jobs. His statement echoes the opposition’s claim that the government’s move undermines the rights of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). The government later withdrew the notification.

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Paswan is also batting for a caste census, a demand being aggressively pushed by the Congress and other opposition parties. Equally vocal was his protest against the Waqf Amendment Bill brought in by the government in the monsoon session. In the midst of all this, Paswan’s uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, who was in the political wilderness ever since the BJP chose to dump him in favour of Paswan before the 2024 election, suddenly met with Amit Shah. There are indications that Paras could get a key position now. He was a Union Minister in the previous Modi government after forming his own party, walking away with all LJP MPs barring Paswan, in 2021.

In 2024, the tables turned and Paras was not given a single Lok Sabha seat to contest from Bihar even as his party remained part of the NDA, while Paswan’s faction contested five seats and won all. However, after becoming Minister of Food Processing Industries, Paswan has tried to maintain the distinct identity of LJP, which in the past allied with socialist parties and Congress.

Paswan’s recent assertions have not gone down well within the BJP. Political experts view Paras’ meeting with Shah and his assertion that he will contest the Bihar Assembly election as part of NDA, as the BJP’s pressure tactic to rein in Paswan. Also, there was a recent development that raised eyebrows. A BJP leader in Bihar filed a complaint challenging Paswan’s Lok Sabha election from Hajipur alleging that he suppressed details about a criminal case.

On August 30, TMC MP Mahua Moitra posted on microblogging site X: “SOP of BJP. The minute any “ally” shows a spine, wants caste census, speaks up against WAKF amendment- get cases filed, break party, put pressure & get them to shut up.” She advised Paswan to “stand strong”.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alleged that the BJP could have poached three LJP MPs, a contention officially denied by LJP, which at the same time did not mince words in criticising Paras and his meeting with Shah. Paswan, on his part, met Shah and expressed confidence that the relationship between him and the BJP was unbreakable. He shared photos of his meeting with Shah on social media and told media persons that there was no possibility of any divide within the party. (It was Paswan who had pushed his father, Ram Vilas Paswan, to join hands with the BJP in February 2014 ahead of the Lok Sabha election after a gap of 12 years.)

The sudden resignation of Tyagi, JDU’s media face in Delhi, was baffling to journalists and politicians of UP and Bihar. Even as the media tried to decipher it, conflicting versions emerged, from Tyagi having been fired for taking on the BJP strongly on many issues to Nitish Kumar keeping him from national media handling ahead of a possible realignment of political forces in Bihar.

Days after Tyagi’s resignation, Bihar’s Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the Secretariat in Patna on September 4, fuelling speculation of another reshuffle in Bihar politics. However, Nitish Kumar quickly sought to establish that he will not change sides any more and said that joining hands with RJD twice in the past was a mistake. On August 9, Tejashwi Yadav also ruled out any future alliance with Nitish Kumar.

Ajay Gudavarthy, associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Frontline: “The relation between the BJP and the allies in Modi 3.0 are not set in stone. The allies are not necessarily looking to pull down the government when they are active partners in the government. How the alliance plays out, therefore, depends more on the opposition INDIA bloc and its ability to set a counter-narrative in place.” He added: “The real crisis is Modi 3.0 has lost its ability to set the narrative as it has no substantive agenda. It has lost its optics of unifying the Hindus, without which Modi cannot be in the driver’s seat. Will this lead to weak governance or strong allies is something we need to keep a watch on.”

Managing allies has always been a tough task for ruling parties at the Centre. The first and second Modi-led governments did not face this problem as the BJP had an absolute majority on its own. However, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to face tantrums from allies such as Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee, and Mayawati. In the first and second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments, headed by Manmohan Singh, pressure from allies was a recurring problem.

The third Modi government, although dependent on allies, is more comfortably placed in comparison to the UPA governments as it is not far off from the majority mark with 240 seats. Its allies have 53 seats in total. For a simple majority, it requires the support of 272 members in the 543-member House. The NDA’s key allies, the Telugu Desam Party, the JD(U), Shiv Sena (Shinde), and the LJP respectively have 16, 12, 7, and 5 members.

In the last two terms, the Modi government had dealt with allies firmly, not acceding to the demand for setting up an NDA Coordination Committee or appointing a convenor for alliance. In fact, Shiv Sena had made the demand for an NDA coordination panel way back in 2015 during the first Modi government. During Modi’s second tenure, even other allies such as the JD(U), LJP, and Apna Dal had demanded a panel to create consensus in decision-making, but it was conveniently ignored.

Also Read | ‘People in Bihar do not want MY, they want A to Z’: K.C. Tyagi

After the BJP passed three contentious farm laws in 2020, its key ally Shiromani Akali Dal even broke away from the alliance after the saffron party refused to heed its demand to rescind them. Contrast this with the agility with which the BJP withdrew or agreed to revisit its contentious decisions this time: it cancelled the advertisement for lateral entry appointments, it withdrew the second draft of the Broadcast Bill and extended to October 15 the date for public feedback on the original Bill, it referred the Waqf Board Bill to a JPC for scrutiny, and restored indexation benefit on long-term capital gains.

Some pragmatism

When needed the BJP has shown the pragmatism to stoop to conquer, such as accepting Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister in the alliance government in Bihar despite having a greater number of seats in the Assembly than the JD(U) in 2010 and then in 2020. The BJP clearly realises that it does not have enough heft in Bihar to come to power on its own. Nitish Kumar first the left NDA in 2013, breaking 17-year-long ties with the BJP, and then rejoined it in 2017; he left again in 2022 and rejoined the NDA in 2023. The JD (U), which had won only two of 40 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014, had forced the BJP to let it contest in 16 seats in 2024. It was a winning combination and the NDA romped home.

The BJP has lost allies in the past. In September 2020, it parted ways with the Shiromani Akali Dal. In September 2023, it lost the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, although it gained the Janata Dal (Secular) as an ally in Karnataka. It remains to be seen how the Modi-Shah duo will manage a full five years depending on allies like Nitish Kumar, Chirag Paswan, and N. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party. All of these leaders have worked with parties across the political spectrum and are known to seek the best deal for themselves.