This is, however, not the first time Nitish had chosen to sever his alliance with BJP in the past nine years. In 2013, the 71-year-old leader had snapped his 17-year-old ties with BJP over projection of erstwhile Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as NDA’s prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 general elections. Later, after getting drubbed in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when his party was reduced from 20 to two seats, Nitish mended fences with his long-time adversary Lalu Prasad to contest the 2015 state assembly polls together as the leader of the Mahagathbandhan, an alliance of JD(U)-RJD and Congress. The grand alliance, as it was called, went on to win the polls with a brute majority felicitating Nitish’s return as the chief minister in November 2015.