Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United passes resolution to join BJP-led NDA (file photo)

Highlights JDU returned to NDA coalition after nearly four years of separation

BJP and JDU had parted ways ahead of 2014 General elections

After exiting Grand Alliance, Nitish Kumar joined hands with BJP in Bihar

Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United formally decided to head back to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance or NDA on Saturday that it had exited abruptly in 2013 ending a partnership that had lasted nearly two decades. The homecoming for the JD (U) comes weeks after the Bihar Chief Minister exited the grand alliance with the Congress and Lalu Yadav's RJD, a rainbow coalition that the opposition believed was the template to prevent the BJP's return in 2019. Mr Kumar had picked up the invite to join the BJP's national coalition during his Delhi visit last week and got a formal seal of approval from the party's national executive meeting in Patna today. The JD (U) is also expected to be offered about two ministerial berths in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers to cement the ties.A formal announcement is expected later in the day once the meeting of the national executive , the party's highest decision-making body ends. But it was on expected lines.Just as it was a given that Sharad Yadav, who is estranged from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over his alliance with the BJP, will skip the meeting where he had been invited to voice his views about the alliance.Mr Yadav, instead, reached Patna but chose to be at a meeting convened by about two dozen JD (U) leaders who were suspended because they were seen with him during his tour of three districts.Sharad Yadav, who had co-founded the JD (U), was removed as leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha for speaking against the alliance with the BJP. But he hasn't been suspended by Nitish Kumar's party so far. but JD (U) general secretary KC Tyagi served a stern warning to his former mentor Sharad Yadav, 70.

"Sharad Yadav is invited for the JD (U) national executive meet and he can sort out differences, but he shouldn't attend Lalu Yadav's programme. We will lose our faith in him, if he does so," Mr Tyagi said, making it clear that Mr Yadav's chances of remaining in the party would also diminish.