Speculation over Bihar Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik meet

BHUBANESWAR: After Trinamool Congress boss Mamata Banerjee’s visit, it is Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s likely meeting with his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik here on May 5 which has fueled political speculations yet again.

Though neither BJD nor Janata Dal (United) has come up with a final schedule for the meeting, sources indicated the topic of formation of an anti- BJP front before the election is likely to be raised when the two leaders catch up. The Bihar CM and JD (U) president had last met the Naveen on March 7, 2017. The meeting, however, did not yield any political outcome as the BJD stayed away from joining any camp in the 2019 elections.

Sources in BJD maintained there should not be much speculation over the meeting as the elections are still 12 months away. Besides, the regional party follows the policy of equi-distance from both the BJP and Congress.Therefore, there is no chance of an alignment with any camp as of now, sources added.

The BJD has, so far, skipped all meetings aimed at forging a third front. While it has been supporting the NDA government at the Centre on almost all important issues since 2019, the two parties have begun to adopt an aggressive stand against each other ahead of the 2024 elections.

The Bihar CM met his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata, Samajwadi Party president Askhilesh Yadav before his Odisha visit. Earlier in April, after meeting prominent opposition leaders in Delhi, Nitish had announced he will travel across the country to unite opposition parties. 

The meeting between the Odisha chief minister and his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee on March 23 at Naveen Nivas had also raised similar speculations. However, Mamata went on to term the meeting a ‘courtesy call.’

Naveen, who maintained no ‘political discussions’ were held, had said: “We resolved to make the federal structure of the country permanent and strong. There was no other political discussion.”