Nitish's U-turn

INDIA's future looks bleak

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s third tieup with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, may not change the fortunes of Bihar. After being sworn in nine times as he switched allegiance between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), governance had taken a distant back seat long ago. In the state’s political affairs, Mr Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), is an influential power despite holding just 45 seats against the BJP’s 78 and the RJD’s 79 in the 243-member Assembly. Bihar’s Assembly elections are not due till 2025