During his visit to Patna, Amit Shah will take stock of the party’s expansion programme, performance of the vistaraks and the functioning of the groups he constituted for electioneering. (Express photo by Subham Dutta/File)
Putting to rest the speculation over troubles in the alliance, JD(U) president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP chief Amit Shah will bond over two meals on Thursday.
Shah, who is visiting Bihar on July 12 to firm up his party’s poll plans in the state, will host a breakfast for Kumar at the state guest house Thursday morning, while Nitish has invited the BJP chief for a dinner at his official residence in Patna, sources said.
The duo’s meetings over meals twice in a day assume political significance as they come in the wake of Nitish’s party re-affirming the alliance in a meeting of its apex decision-making body that quashed, at least temporarily, rumours over disquiet in the coalition.
Nitish’s dinner invitation for Shah at his residence also comes eight years after a scheduled dinner cancelled by him, triggering intense bitterness between the two parties. In June 2010, Nitish had cancelled a dinner he had planned to host for BJP leaders who were in Patna to attend the party’s national executive meet. Then heading a JD(U)-BJP government, Nitish was apparently livid over publication of advertisements by state BJP leaders in local newspapers, showing him and Modi together in an expression of solidarity.
The JD(U) leader’s move had worsened the ties between the two parties and they parted ways in 2013, ending a 17-year alliance in Bihar. Although both parties came together in July last year, BJP leaders privately admit that many in the party have not forgotten Nitish’s move to cancel the scheduled dinner at the last minute.
However, Thursday’s breakfast and dinner meetings between Nitish and Shah are expected to strengthen the ties, which has become a political necessity for both the sides, said a BJP leader.
During his visit to Patna, Shah will take stock of the party’s expansion programme, performance of the vistaraks and the functioning of the groups he constituted for electioneering.
Party sources said the BJP is buoyed by the outcome of the JD(U)’s national executive meeting in Delhi on Sunday. “The party’s statements after the meeting have laid to rest many rumours about the future of the alliance in Bihar. It did not make any claims or demands over seats,” said a party leader.
At the meeting, Nitish had said that he was yet to receive any proposal from the BJP so far on seat-sharing for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The party maintained that the alliance with the BJP was intact.