New Delhi: Angered by the attitude of the Narendra Modi government at the Center on the issue of new agricultural legislation and farmers’ agitation, the National Democratic Party, a BJP ally in Rajasthan, has left the National Democratic Alliance. RLP President Hanuman Prasad Beniwal announced it himself. This is the fourth party to leave the NDA in the last four months. Earlier in September, the BJP’s oldest ally Shiromani Akali Dal left the NDA on the issue of farmers. Harsimrat Kaur, who was a minister in the Modi government, resigned on the issue of farmers.
After this, in October, the Kerala Congress, led by PC Thomas, also left the NDA. By December, the Bodoland People’s Front in Assam also left the NDA. Now compared to 2014, there are only 16 parties left in the NDA. However, there are some parties which have recently joined the NDA. Such parties include Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hum, Mukesh Sahni’s VIP in Bihar. Similarly, in Assam, the United People’s Party of Pramod Boro has formed an alliance with the BJP after the recent BTC elections.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won a big victory in the general elections, forming a larger NDA alliance, but gradually its allies went away from it. Haryana Janhit Congress left the BJP first. Kuldeep Vishnoi said goodbye to the NDA only a few months after the Lok Sabha elections. In 2014, the MDMK of Tamil Nadu also quit the NDA accusing the BJP of working against the Tamils. After this, in 2016, before the Tamil Nadu elections, two other parties (DMDK, Ramdaus’s PMK) also left the BJP.
In Andhra Pradesh, actor Pawan Kalyan’s party Jan Sena also left the BJP in 2014. Later in 2016, the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Kerala also joined the BJP. In 2017, the party named Swabhiman Paksh in Maharashtra broke away from the NDA by accusing the Modi government of anti-farmerism. Naga People’s Front in Nagaland, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hum in Bihar also left the alliance. However, Manjhi and Sahni have returned to the NDA clan before the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections.
In March 2018, the NDA suffered a major setback when its larger ally Telugu Desam quit. The head of this party, Chandrababu Naidu, accused the Modi government of not promising special status to Andhra Pradesh. After that, the same year, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, a BJP ally in West Bengal, also broke ties with the NDA. In the same year, Karnataka Pragyanavatha Party also took a different route from NDA. Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Upendra Kushwaha (RLSP), a minister in the Modi government, also left the NDA. In Uttar Pradesh, Omprakash Rajbhar’s party Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party also left the NDA and Yogi cabinet before the Lok Sabha elections.
In the year 2018 itself, BJP itself separated from the common government of Mehbooba Mufti in Jammu and Kashmir. In this way PDP also got separated from NDA. After the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections in 2019, Shiv Sena, the BJP’s 30-year-old ally, on the issue of the Chief Minister, left the NDA alliance and formed a government with the fiercely anti-Congress and NCP.