Nitish meets Shah at Patna hotel in rare gesture

Patna: In a rare gesture, CM Nitish Kumar on Thursday morning visited Union home minister Amit Shah at a city hotel. Usually, visiting leaders meet the CM at his official residence.

Nitish was accompanied by senior JD(U) functionaries Sanjay Kumar Jha and Vijay Kumar Choudhary. Present from the BJP were state president Dilip Jaiswal, deputy CM Samrat Choudhary and party in charge of Bihar Vinod Tawde. The half-an-hour meeting in Shah’s hotel room is being seen as a step towards a formal announcement of seat-sharing in the NDA.


A senior BJP leader said it was a courtesy call by the CM, who could not meet BJP national president J P Nadda during his Patna visit on Sept 13 owing to health reasons.

The body language of Nitish and Shah, however, sent a clear signal to allies that all was well. Nitish handed Shah a bouquet and presented him a shawl with both smiling broadly. They also shared photographs of exchanging pleasantries with folded hands on their social media platforms.

“Met Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in Patna today,” Shah posted in Hindi on X, sharing their picture. Nitish too wrote, “Met honourable Union home minister Amit Shah today.”

Though no press briefing followed the meeting, which took place ahead of the formal seat-sharing announcement for the assembly polls due in Oct-Nov, sources said the outline of the election campaign was discussed.

A senior JD(U) leader told this newspaper that backroom talks between the two “big brothers” of the NDA had nearly reached consensus. According to him, JD(U) would address the concerns of Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and the RLM of former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, while BJP would deal with Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV), which is expected to get more seats than the combined tally of Manjhi and Kushwaha. “A formal discussion will take place soon,” he said.

Chirag has also admitted that all NDA partners have a broad understanding of seat numbers, which will be settled through negotiations.

Sources did not rule out permutations and combinations in both camps, or even the entry of another party into the NDA fold, as happened in 2020 when Mukesh Sahani walked out of a Mahagathbandhan press conference and contested with the BJP, which gave him seats from its own quota. This time, Sahani is with the opposition INDIA bloc. In 2020, Kushwaha contested with BSP and AIMIM while Chirag fielded candidates in 137 seats independently, damaging JD(U) nominees in around 40 constituencies and reducing Nitish’s party to 43 MLAs, its lowest tally.

In the last assembly election, BJP and JD(U) had a 121:122 seat-sharing formula. From its quota, BJP gave 11 seats to Sahani’s VIP, while JD(U) gave seven to Manjhi’s HAM(S). Manjhi now wants at least 15 seats. Chirag, who has yet to reveal his cards, continues to assert that his devotion to PM Narendra Modi is “unparallelled.”