First time after switch, Nitish Kumar meets Narendra Modi: ‘Will stay here’

After meeting PM Modi, Kumar also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda.

Nitish Kumar meets PM Modi days after return to NDA fold

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a meeting in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)

For the first time after returning to the NDA fold last month, Bihar CM and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar met PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi Wednesday. After meeting PM Modi, Kumar also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda.

After meeting Nadda, Kumar said no seat-sharing talks were held and that both parties have a rough idea about it. He recalled his association with the BJP since 1995 and reiterated that although ties were severed “twice, but won’t ever happen again. We will stay here now and not go anywhere.” Kumar’s government is set to face a trust vote on February 12.

A day before Kumar’s visit, JD (U) sources had told The Indian Express the meeting would be a courtesy call and seat-sharing discussion was not on the agenda. The arrangements, sources said, would be on the lines of the 2019 LS polls, “plus minus one or two”, indicating that both parties would fight in 17 seats each, which would roughly be the guiding principle.

The two factions of erstwhile unified LJP – one led by late Ram Vilas Paswan’s brother Pashunath Kumar Paras and the other by his son Chirag – are also with the NDA. When Nitish rejoined the NDA, Chirag had accepted he had past reservations about JD(U) and would wait and watch how it played out.

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