JD(U) party members greet chief minister Nitish Kumar before his departure for the Purnea leg of Seva Yatra, at the state hangar in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

New Delhi, Jan. 5: The BJP’s chief ally, the JD(U), has sent it a big message wrapped in a small disagreement: we want to break free. Outside Bihar, of course, where Nitish Kumar has led an ascendant NDA power alliance for six years now.

The JD(U)’s decision to contest the UP elections on its own stems from more than merely the failure of seat sharing talks with the BJP. There is also a strong sense in influential JD(U) ranks that it should not be seen as an “ideological adjunct” to the BJP and must emphasise its separate identity.

Although the JD(U)’s go-it-alone resolve will only have a marginal, if any, impact in UP, its assertion of independence could become consequential in the post-2014 scenario, should the nation vote a hung Parliament. The JD(U) leaders are not prepared to speculate yet on whether this positioning is aimed at keeping their post-Lok Sabha poll options open but they are keen not to let their identity be swallowed by the BJP.

Although Nitish Kumar has not overtly endorsed party president Sharad Yadav’s decision to pull away from the BJP in UP, he may have quietly encouraged the leadership on ploughing a separate furrow. Nitish runs the alliance in Bihar strictly on his own terms and is loath to enter any arrangement where the BJP would seem to have the upper hand. His insistent drawing of the lakshman rekha (boundary line) on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s role in Bihar is proof of that.

Although Nitish has consistently and strongly denied any ambitions of moving to Delhi, sources close to him maintain that his “future interests would not be hurt by keeping a few doors and options open”. Keeping, and strengthening, an identity distinct from the BJP is aimed at that end.

“It is clear that should the BJP come under the dominant influence of leaders like Narendra Modi at the national-level, Nitish will look for a way out of the alliance irrespective of whether it is about Bihar or New Delhi,” the sources said.

Nitish was not part of the nitty-gritty decision making over UP — he is currently busy conducting his Seva Yatra in Purnea in north-east Bihar — but the party sources confirmed he has “no quarrel” with Yadav’s decision and will “actively campaign” for the JD(U) in east and central UP. “He sees this as an opportunity to showcase the gains in Bihar outside the state and expand the base of the JD(U),” party sources said. “Large parts of east UP have social, cultural and linguistic commonalities with Bihar, there is nothing that says we should be a Bihar-only party.”

JD(U) general secretary K.C. Tyagi confirmed the party felt the need to fashion a sharper and larger identity, irrespective of the alliance with the BJP. “The alliance is not working beyond Bihar and the truth is we may not be terribly interested either,” Tyagi told The Telegraph a day after the party announced its rather angered decision to “contest all seats” in UP.

“Ours is a conscious decision driven by legitimate ambitions to grow beyond the confines of Bihar. This in no way threatens the arrangement in Bihar, but that alliance alone cannot lock down our prospects elsewhere.”

Tyagi, who is also in charge of the UP campaign, readily conceded that the JD(U) would not eventually contest all 400-plus UP seats — there are neither enough credible candidates nor the kind of funds to sink on untested turf. “We may only contest about half the UP seats but the point is we consider ourselves free to contest all on a plank independent of the BJP. We are no longer willing to be taken for granted.”

There may be a very personal element at play here — Tyagi lost a determined bid to get the Lok Sabha nod from Meerut to the BJP’s insistence on its own nominee in 2009 — but the JD(U) sources said the party’s frustrations with the BJP went far beyond Tyagi’s individual case.

“We used to contest at least 15 seats in the Karnataka Assembly and the BJP made us sacrifice all of those seats. We managed six seats in Rajasthan after intense haggling and the BJP put up and backed rebel candidates in each of those. This cannot go on forever. We have our own following and concerns and we must back them, just as the BJP does.”