Nitish Kumar's silent on CBI raids at Lalu & Co, is a political potboiler in the making?

On Friday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and their son and current deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav on charges of corruption.

Lalu Prasad Yadav's party the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is a coalition partner in the Bihar government. For three days now, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has not commented on these raids.

While the silence is odd, it is being seen by many as a part of Nitish's plan - of quitting Bihar's 'Grand Alliance' and returning to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Nitish Kumar has made several flip-flops in his career as a politician.

Early political positioning

Belonging to the socialist class of politicians, Nitish was an active member of the Jayaprakash Narayan movement between 1974 and 1977. During this time, he also became close to Bihar's eventual chief minister Satyendra Narayan Sinha.

In 1994, Nitish and George Fernandes came together to form the Samta Party. The part's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha elections yielded good results and established him as a leader.

In 2000, Nitish became the chief minister of Bihar for the first time. But his government lasted only eight days.

During 1998-99, Nitish served as the Union Minister for Railways and Minister for Surface Transport and later as the Minister for Agriculture in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

His party merged with Janata Dal (United) in 2003 which was also part of the NDA.

He returned as the railway minister in 2001, a position he served until the term ended in 2004.

Nitish was praised for undertaking major reforms in the Indian Railways such as internet ticketing, introduction of the tatkal scheme and opening a record number of ticketing counters.

Nitish Kumar came to power as the Bihar Chief Minister again, after JD (U) and BJP won in 2005. The alliance convincingly retained power in 2010.

Nitish got recognition for the work he did in Bihar and by early 2013, it had become clear that Narendra Modi and Nitish were the two strongest possible candidates for the NDA for the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

With a strong anti-incumbency factor looming over the Congress-led alliance in the centre, Nitish too sensed that the 2014 Lok Sabha election would be the right opportunity for the top job in Delhi, perhaps.

His calculation was simple. If the BJP is unable to get a majority by itself, they would have to rely on JD (U)'s support and look at a more "secular face" for the prime ministerial position thereby choosing him ahead of Modi.

The drift away from NDA

When Modi became the de facto prime ministerial candidate of the NDA, Nitish decided to pull-out of the alliance.

The NDA got a thumping majority and Nitish's miscalculation was exposed. After winning just two seats (a loss of 18 seats from 2009), he was forced to take moral responsibility for the embarrassing loss and resign as the Chief Minister. He was replaced by Jitan Ram Manjhi.

But, less than a year later, he returned as the chief minister to rally party members in what can be called an ugly in-fight within the JD (U), behind him after Manjhi refused to step aside.

Fearing a wipeout by the BJP, JD (U) tied-up with the Congress and rival-RJD to counter BJP.

In what came as a surprise to many, the 'Grand Alliance' won the election convincingly.

But, the relationship between the three alliance members has not been cordial.

In April 2016, Lalu Prasad Yadav called Nitish as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, starting speculations about a grand alliance for 2019.

The latest manoeuvre

Nitish is showing signs of abandoning his partners, even before the alliance takes off.

In November 2016, he praised the prime minister for carrying out demonetisation. Again, in June this year, his party backed BJP's Ram Nath Kovind as the presidential candidate. He chose to meet the prime minister on the day opposition leaders were to meet.

He has once again refused to be a part of the meeting to discuss the opposition's vice-presidential candidate on July 11.

And now, he has chosen to maintain silence on the CBI raids on Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi and his own deputy chief minister.

He has also scrapped a public interface event and subsequent press conference scheduled for Monday.

JD (U) has 71 seats in the Bihar assembly. An alliance with the BJP which has 53 seats and five more seats held by other NDA allies can take the tally to 129, well over the halfway mark.

To many, his actions come across as political manoeuvres. In the past, like in 2014, such manoeuvring landed Nitish and his party in the dock. During other times, like in 2015, they worked well for him.

If he succeeds this time, it will certainly crash opposition's dream of a 'Grand Alliance' for 2019.