Patna: The ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) in Bihar headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday announced it would contest assembly elections in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat on its own — a development indicating all is not well between the two allies, which joined hands only three months back. Gujarat goes to polls in December.

“Our party will not form an alliance with any party, including the BJP, in Gujarat elections and will contest elections alone on its traditional seats,” JD-U general secretary KC Tyagi told the media in New Delhi on Saturday.

The development has surprised political pundits as the JD-U returned to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) only in July after breaking alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress party.

Sources on the inside say the JD-U is not at all happy with the BJP frequently “humiliating” its new ally and not giving due regard to it, as was expected.

Earlier this month, the JD-U had joined the opposition and questioned the “impartiality” of the Election Commission (EC) after it didn’t announce dates for Gujarat elections, along with those for Himachal Pradesh. The EC announced the dates for the Gujarat state poll only three days back.

“EC must not only be impartial but seem to be so. Why have the dates for Gujarat elections not been announced? We need credible answers,” JD-U’s national spokesperson Pavan K Varma tweeted recently.

Significantly, Varma did not make these observations in his personal capacity but rather as the spokesperson of the party, indicating the seriousness of the situation. This has fuelled speculations over the souring relations between the two allies.

JD-U insiders say the BJP was treating its new ally “very shabbily” and a spate of recent developments points towards this fact.

On October 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly rejected the Bihar chief minister’s demand for granting central university status to the Patna University (PU) — the third such major rejection in quick succession in the past three months. PU was once known as the Oxford of the East for its quality of teaching.

In August, the Narendra Modi government rejected the JD-U’s long-pending demand for granting special category status to Bihar.

“An inter-ministerial group formed on September 8, 2011 had earlier discussed the issue of granting special category status to Bihar. It presented its report on March 30, 2012. The group on the basis of the present criteria fixed by the NDC, had come to the conclusion that Bihar can’t be granted Special Category stats … There is no change in this criteria till date,” Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Planning Rao Inderjit Singh said in his letter to Madhepura parliamentarian Pappu Yadav. The reply came after Yadav asked him about the status of this demand, which Modi had promised to fulfil once coming to power.

The JD-U suffered yet another humiliation when none from the party was inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet during its recent reshuffle carried out in September. The JD-U was expecting at least two of its leaders getting a place in the Modi cabinet but in further embarrassment, the party was not even invited to attend the function held at Rashtrapati Bhawan.