A day before the Opposition comes together for one of its biggest rallies since the INDIA alliance was formed last year, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, ironically the leader who took the initiative to form the Opposition bloc, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will share the stage at events in both Aurangabad and Begusarai. Both are Lok Sabha constituencies currently held by the BJP. The PM will begin the day with public programmes in West Bengal’s Nadia district and will arrive in Aurangabad around 2.30 pm. He will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of projects worth Rs 21,400 crore. Among the projects whose foundation stone he will lay is a six-lane bridge across the Ganga that will be developed as a part of the Patna Ring Road, according to a statement from the PMO. This bridge, the PMO said, will be one of the longest river bridges in India. Modi is also scheduled to lay the foundation stone of a Unity Mall in Patna. Modi will then head to Begusarai, the constituency of his Cabinet colleague Giriraj Singh, and unveil multiple oil and gas sector projects across the country worth Rs 1.48 lakh crore. For Bihar, the PM is set to inaugurate several development initiatives worth more than Rs 13,400 crore on Saturday. In context: While Nitish met the PM in Delhi last month after yet another switch back to the NDA in January, this will be the first time in almost two years they will share the stage at a public event. The two have a long history of sharing a topsy-turvy relationship, with Nitish’s oscillations between the BJP and the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan dictated as much by realpolitik as his national ambitions and instinct for political survival. Nitish, who joined hands with the BJP in 1995, first quit the NDA in 2013 in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections when it became clear that Modi would be the NDA’s PM candidate. Though he did not make a pitch for the top job, Modi’s growing national profile did not sit well with him. Since then he has gone back to the RJD, left it to get back to the NDA, switched sides to join the RJD and now is again back with the BJP. While Modi is going for his third straight term as PM, Nitish’s national ambitions remain unfulfilled and he will have to be content with being Bihar’s longest-serving Chief Minister. Recommended reading: Nitish Kumar’s words that may haunt him now: ‘NDA has no vision’ to ‘BJP will be finished in Bihar’ to caste census Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra resumes With Congress president Rahul Gandhi back from the UK after delivering lectures at his alma mater Cambridge University, the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra resumes on Saturday morning after a five-day break. The yatra will restart from Dholpur in Rajasthan and proceed to Morena district in Madhya Pradesh. Gandhi is scheduled to lead a roadshow in Gwalior on Saturday evening and address a public meeting in Hazira. While the effect of the yatra in electoral terms will be clear in a few months, the party is still dealing with the fallout of losing the Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh in the February 27 polls. As Manoj CG writes in his must-read article on the front page of The Indian Express, “ … sources said the central leadership got a whiff of the seriousness of what was brewing in the Himachal Congress at least a week before February 27, the day voting for the Rajya Sabha election took place.” Despite this, the party failed to stave off the BJP and managed to lose the Upper House berth despite the supposed numerical superiority in the Assembly. Recommended reading: In this week’s column, our Contributing Editor Neerja Chowdhury writes of a Congress in crisis and where the road to recovery lies. When will the BJP's first list be out? The most anticipated political story since Thursday night has been the BJP’s first list for the Lok Sabha polls. As reported by Vikas Pathak, the first list is likely to be out over the weekend — Sunday may be a more apt choice for the party since it will take away some of the attention from the Opposition rally in Bihar — and apart from some big names, including PM Modi, it is likely to feature candidates from the so-called weak seats, constituencies the party lost last time. According to Vikas, the first list may have about 20 candidates from Uttar Pradesh apart from nominees from Madhya Pradesh (either almost all or about 10 of the 29) and the tribal belts of Surguja and Bastar in Chhattisgarh.
