There are indications that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will quit the alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Sunday and stake claim to form the government with the BJP, marking the fourth time he has switched sides in just over a decade.

Amid the turbulence in state politics, Nitish, whether with the Mahagathbandhan or the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has managed to retain the CM’s chair and ensured that his party has not split over his repeated flip-flops. His bargaining power has not diminished over the years even though the JD(U)’s electoral footprint has shrunk (it is currently the third-largest party in the Bihar Assembly behind RJD and BJP). Even when he has left the BJP he has been able to ensure that his party does not get split, unlike the Shiv Sena.

Here are four reasons why the JD(U) has not split despite their leader’s frequent U-turns and Nitish remains the force to reckon with in Bihar politics.

A cursory glance at the JD(U)’s history reveals that like most regional parties, except ones that promote dynastic succession, Nitish has never allowed the emergence of a second-in-command. Whether it was his old friend Rajiv Ranjan Singh, also known as Lalan Singh, or bureaucrat-turned-politician R C P Singh, no one was given any key role except organisational responsibility. For a brief period, Nitish looked at promoting Upendra Kushwaha, when he was made the Leader of the Opposition in the mid-1990s. But Kushwaha’s growing ambition led to a falling out with Nitish, who then stopped promoting anyone.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh once famously said Nitish would not like “even a distant second to him”. But it is Nitish’s supremacy as the leader of the party that has allowed the JD(U) to remain a strong and cohesive unit. This is why not even a small group of JD(U) MLAs has ever been loyal to any leader other than him. The BJP’s alleged plan to groom R C P Singh to effect a split in the JD(U) did not work because he only enjoyed the support of two to three MLAs. Even at a time when the JD(U) has a mere 45 MLAs, it won’t split as no party leader has the potential to break away with 30 MLAs, the number required for a defection to be recognised.

Nitish’s credentials as an administrator remain unquestionable in state politics. The JD(U) has pivoted around his image since the 2005 Assembly elections. It was BJP leader Arun Jaitley who first floated the idea of projecting Nitish as CM before the 2005 polls and it worked. Then on, Nitish went from strength to strength by scripting a turnaround for Bihar between 2005 and 2010. The “Sushashan Babu” tag stuck with him and JD(U) and Nitish became synonymous.

With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, there are rumours that Nitish sensed unease in the party for the first time as most of his subordinates saw a better prospect in being with the BJP. The ongoing drama is being read as Nitish’s reworking of his strategy, pre-empting any mass departure from the JD(U).

The BJP and the JD(U) have a complimentary voter base, more or less. While the BJP focuses on the upper caste and non-Yadav Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), Nitish works around his OBC constituency of Luv-Kush (Kurmi-Koeri) along with EBCs, non-Yadav OBCs, and Scheduled Castes (SCs).

While Nitish’s prime focus, besides his core Luv-Kush voters, has been on EBCs and Mahadalits (SCs), he also accommodates upper castes while the BJP also reaches out to SCs and EBCs. Together, the JD(U) and the BJP gel well.

Nitish’s development face adds to the BJP’s projection of Narendra Modi’s personality as a pro-development leader and his government’s welfare schemes. JD(U) MLAs feel more assured in the NDA than in the RJD. Modi’s rise over the past decade has provided added benefits to Nitish, who saw Modi’s magic in the 2019 polls when his party won 16 of the 17 parliamentary seats it fought. Modi at the Centre and Nitish in Bihar is still a winning proposition in Bihar and another reason why JD(U) MLAs have stuck on with the CM.

By promising 10 lakh jobs during the 2020 Assembly polls, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav succeeded to some extent in breaking the shackles of the RJD’s tag as a Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) party. He labelled it “economic justice” and promised to make the RJD a broad-based “A to Z” party.

But Tejashwi’s bid for inclusive politics lost steam when he joined hands with Nitish who has been staking a claim to Tejashwi’s job promise theme. The RJD’s return to focusing on its core voters, and not opening up to other social groups, has meanwhile limited it to being an M-Y party, where upper castes and even EBCs and SCs do not see bright prospects. That keeps JD(U)’s prospects as a broad-based party alive and provides Nitish with all the room to manoeuvre as per political expediency.