Nitish Kumar's resignation drama was scripted in New Delhi and implemented in Patna with only a few senior leaders in the BJP and JDU privy to the developments.

But to most political observers the developments were apparent.

The Bihar CM and Prime Minister Modi were in constant touch with each other via mediators. While BJP president Amit Shah was in the know of the exchanges between Modi and Kumar, the active participant to the dialogues was Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The hotline phones between Nitish and Modi were also active during the late evenings.

On July 25, after President Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in, Jaitley and Nitish had a 'secret' meeting at an undisclosed location.

Quite naturally, the PM, was kept in the loop all through. Parallely Sushil Kumar Modi was in touch with Amit Shah.

Meanwhile, Arun Jaitley and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad have also had frequent meetings where the  BJP has ostensibly gathered inputs from the Congress about the political scenario in Bihar.  And then there were Intelligence Bureau inputs as well before Nitish actually decided to dump the grand alliance.

But the main players who helped Nitish decide were, unsurprisingly, Narendra Modi and  Amit Shah.