A video byte of Nitish Kumar on Aaj Tak News has gone viral in which the scrolling at the bottom claims that the Bihar chief minister has broken his alliance with the BJP and is going to merge with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Nitish Kumar can be heard telling the media that everyone wants his party Janata Dal (United) to leave the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) prompting him to resign from the CM post.
Those sharing the video claim Nitish Kumar’s declaration in the viral clip is recent and it shows the dire state of the relationship between JD(U) and the ruling party at the Centre.
A social media user shared the video and wrote, “Chacha is not picking up Modiji's call. The 2025 games are going to be held in Bihar.” (Translated from Hindi)
SouthCheck found that the claim is misleading. The viral video is two years old.
On a Google reverse image search, we found the same video uploaded by Aaj Tak on its YouTube channel on August 9, 2022. The title of the video reads, “Bihar Political Crisis: What Nitish Kumar said after giving resignation.”
According to the caption, the alliance between the BJP and JD(U) in Bihar was broken resulting in Nitish Kumar resigning from the post of chief minister.
Dainik Jagran also reported the set of events on August 9, 2022. The report stated that the NDA alliance was broken in Bihar after Nitish Kumar resigned as the chief minister. The report also quoted him saying that the party would join Mahagathbandhan, i.e, the alliance with RJD.
Mahagathbandhan is the coalition of political parties formed ahead of the 2015 Vidhan Sabha elections in Bihar. The alliance consists of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Indian National Congress (INC) and Left parties including the Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation-CPIML (Liberation) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM).
On August 9, 2022, Nitish Kumar left the NDA alliance to be with Mahagathbandhan. However, on January 28, 2024, Nitish Kumar switched back to NDA to be with the BJP.
Further, we did not find any recent news report stating that Nitish Kumar has left the BJP. Therefore, we conclude that the viral claim is misleading.