Former Bihar deputy chief minister and finance minister Sushil Kumar Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar go back a long way. Both were part of the Jayaprakash Narayan movement in the 1970s. And till now, both have refrained from attacking each other. But after much prodding, the 61-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party leader opens up to Debaashish Bhattacharya in a tape-recorded telephone interview. Excerpts:

Q: Why did the alliance in Bihar really break down? Was Narendra Modi the only reason, as Nitish Kumar insists?

A: Not at all. From the very beginning of his second term as chief minister, Nitish Kumar was in two minds about this alliance. Shortly after he took over in 2010, he got three MLAs from other parties to join the JD(U). He wanted to run his own government. He wanted to do a Naveen Patnaik and dump the BJP.

Q: Are you saying Nitish Kumar was looking for an excuse to snap ties?

A: Exactly. And he felt if he snapped ties in the name of Narendra Modi, he would be able to consolidate Muslim votes.

Q: But the BJP has considerable strength in the House.

A: That’s why Nitish Kumar was initially hesitant. He did not want to do anything drastic — we had 91 MLAs against the JD(U)’s 115 or so. He went about it slowly, making sure he would be able to prove his majority in the House before he pulled the rug from under our feet.

Q: So you saw it coming?

A: Yes. But Nitish Kumar came to power piggybacking on the BJP. Whatever we have achieved in Bihar (in terms of development) is the result of a joint effort of the two parties. We could not have dethroned Lalu Prasad had the BJP and JD(U) not fought together in the elections.

Q: Do you personally feel let down by Nitish Kumar’s decision to snap ties?

A: We have transformed the state jointly and the BJP had a lot more to do for Bihar. But we won’t be able to do that simply because of the petty and personal gains of one leader. They have betrayed the people’s mandate.

Q: Did Nitish Kumar talk to you personally before ending the alliance?

A: No. What’s galling is the way he dismissed the 11 BJP ministers, including myself, instead of allowing us to resign. This includes Ashwini Kumar Choubey, the minister who was stranded in Kedarnath and lost family members in the Uttarakhand disaster.

Q: What about Nitish Kumar’s refusal to accept Narendra Modi’s elevation in the BJP?

A: It was nothing but an excuse. Look at his hypocrisy! He had no problems accepting Advaniji as a prime ministerial candidate even after the Babri Masjid demolition. He stayed with the NDA even after the Godhra incident and the subsequent Gujarat riots. If he is so perturbed by Narendra Modi, why didn’t he leave the NDA then, as Ram Vilas Paswan did? Actually, there is also a personal angle to this.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Sometimes, you cannot stand a person and that leads to ego clashes.

Q: Do you mean “ego clashes” between Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi?

A: Nitishji feels why should he back another chief minister (Narendra Modi) in his bid to be Prime Minister when he himself is a chief minister for a second term, besides being a former railway minister. He feels he is no less deserving.

Q: Do you mean that Nitish Kumar too aspires to be Prime Minister?

A: No politician will publicly say that he wants to be Prime Minister. But it is there at the back of his mind. Nitishji knows anything can happen in this coalition era if we have a fractured mandate in 2014. So he didn’t want a strong leader like Narendra Modi to be projected as a candidate for the Prime Minister’s post. He knew if he could demolish Modi, his chances of becoming Prime Minister would increase in the event of a hung Parliament.

Q: Will Muslims side with Nitish Kumar now that he has parted ways with the BJP on the Modi issue?

A: Things have vastly changed over the past two decades or so. Nitish Kumar won’t be able to reap the political harvest that Lalu Prasad did when he arrested L.K. Advani in the early 1990s. At that time, the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was at its peak and society was polarised along communal lines. Now, both Hindus and Muslims, especially the young, have moved on. They want education, jobs and development. Many of them don’t even know what the Babri mosque or Godhra is. Narendra Modi has moved ahead too and talks only of progress. It is only his opponents who are still trying to hold him hostage to the past in the hope of grabbing minority votes. But this won’t help. Nitish Kumar is a political opportunist and has lost his credibility.

Q: But you have always been very close to Nitish Kumar.

A: We supported him all the way. This alliance had its share of problems. There were several occasions when we did not agree with his decisions, but we either ignored them or compromised just to keep the alliance alive. But there were some things which were hard to take sometimes.

Q: Such as?

A: We don’t mind Nitishji taking a big share of the credit for the progress in Bihar since he has been the leader of the alliance. But he hogged the entire credit for everything that went well in Bihar, refusing to share it even with his party ministers, let alone those from the BJP.

Q: Nitish Kumar did stop Narendra Modi from campaigning in Bihar in the 2010 Assembly elections.

A: It was not his decision. We decided who would campaign in Bihar.

Q: Are you going to invite Modi to Bihar now?

A: Yes. He will address a rally in Patna on October 27.

Q: You are quite close to Modi.

A: I have known him for the last 35 years. When I was national general secretary of the ABVP, he was an RSS pracharak in Gujarat, looking after the Vidyarthi Parishad. It’s a long association.

Q: Why did the BJP stage a walkout instead of voting against Nitish Kumar when he was proving his majority in the Assembly?

A: We did not have the majority to bring down the government. We had already heard that the four Congress MLAs would support him, along with a few independents.

Q: Will the BJP in Bihar go after his government?

A: No, we won’t do anything to bring down or destabilise his government. We will also not try to form a government. We will play the role of a constructive Opposition.

Q: What political situation do you see emerging in Bihar?

A: Let’s see how things pan out. People are angry. They don’t see anything wrong with Narendra Modi and reject the excuse used to dump the BJP in Bihar. The Bihar government has gone from being stable to a lame duck one. Nitish Kumar is relying on the Congress, which has no future in Bihar. This government will now have to go on compromising, depending as it is on the Congress and independent MLAs for survival. It’s a weak government since the JD(U) doesn’t have its own majority in the House.