Patna: The one-and-a-half-year-old ruling Grand Alliance government in Bihar led by chief minister Nitish Kumar appears heading for collapse with two key partners locked in bitter confrontation over the issue of deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.

Tejashwi who is son of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad has been named an accused in a land scandal by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and this has caused a major headache for chief minister Kumar.

The scandal relates to the period when Prasad was the federal railway minister in the previous Manmohan Singh government. Tejashwi was a minor then.

The image-conscious Kumar wants his deputy to immediately resign in view of the past precedent set by him wherein he never allowed a “tainted” minister to continue in his cabinet but the RJD has declared he will not resign claiming he has made implicated in a false case under “political conspiracy”.

“An FIR (First Information Report) doesn’t mean resignation. If that becomes the law, then anybody can be removed from their posts anytime simply by filing a case him,” Prasad has said.

He added the Tejashwi has become the deputy chief minister with the blessings of the people of Bihar and there was no question of his resigning from the post.

A meeting of the RJD Legislative Party held on Monday decided Tejashwi would not resign, triggering tension in the alliance.

The JD-U, on the other hand, warned the RJD against “serious consequences” if the deputy CM doesn’t vacate the post.

“The RJD should take a decision over the issues soon. The JD-U can’t compromise with its principle,” warned JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar on Thursday.

As both sides look adamant on respective stands, there looks a complete deadlock in the government. This was completely visible on Wednesday when both the chief minister and his deputy didn’t interact with each other although they attended a cabinet meeting, media reports said.

The grand alliance was formed ahead of 2015 assembly polls in Bihar to stop the surging BJP. The alliance earned huge praise when it was able to defeat the mighty BJP under Modi, restricting the BJP to 53 seats in 243-meber Bihar assembly. The sudden collapse of this alliance is, thus, bound to deal a severe blow to the poll prospects of the two partners as none will trust them any longer in future.

The problem has multiplied with the chief minister accused of being constantly in “touch” with the BJP but in recent few days since the trouble in ruling alliance erupted the saffron camp has made conflicting remarks — sometime announcing to support the chief minister if he breaks alliance with the RJD and sometimes ruling out any tie-up with the JD-U, leaving Mr Kumar in complete dilemma.

“There is no such plan with the BJP [of tying up with JD-U]. in case of fresh political development, the BJP Parliamentary Board alone is empowered to take a decision,” senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told the media on Thursday.

Kumar is not a position to form government on his own as he doesn’t have required number of legislators. His JD-U has only 71 MLAs in 243-mmeber Bihar assembly against the RJD which has 80 members. Well the BJP may temporarily save his throne that will ultimately prove politically suicidal to him, observers believe.

It was over the issue of a hardline Hindutva leader Narendra Modi that he had broken the 17-year-old alliance with the BJP in June 2013 and that issue still remains very much. Further, the BJP is yet to forget the humiliation of alliance break-up and there is no guarantee that how long this government will last.

Experts say going with the BJP will not only badly dent his image but project him as a leader who ultimately surrendered the before the BJP. Also he will instantly lose the vast minority vote-bank that he currently enjoys for being an ally of the RJD. Yet another option is to resign and seek fresh polls but the JD-U doesn’t have a solid vote-base in any class.