C P Joshi coming to Bihar to decide Cong line on Nitish

Amid speculation about Congress strategy on the JD(U) in Bihar following its bailing out Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the recent confidence vote, party general secretary C P Joshi is arriving here this weekend to take feed-back.
Joshi, who has been made the new in-charge of Bihar affairs, is coming here on a two-day visit starting from June 29 to decide the party's "future line on Nitish Kumar".
Ever since the four-member Congress voted for Nitish Kumar in the confidence vote on June 19 after the JD(U) splits with the BJP, speculation is rife if an electoral understanding between the Congress and the JD(U) was on the cards.

"We will certainly ask Joshijee about our party's future line on Nitish Kumar," a senior state party leader said on the conditions of anonymity.
After separation of the JD(U) from the BJP and dismissal of the saffron party's 11 ministers from the government, speculation is doing the rounds whether the Congress would dump Lalu Prasad in favour of Nitish Kumar.
Kumar had thanked the Congress for voting for him in the trust motion, but dismissed indications of his party coming closer to it in future.

Joshi, who would be coming to Bihar for the first time after becoming the in-charge of the state affairs, would interact with the president of the district Congress committee and Block Congress committees, besides state leaders on ways and means to strengthen the party in the state, state Congress sources said.

When a question on alliance was put to another general secretary Shakeel Ahmad, he said there was a committee under Defence minister A K Antony to decide on alliance.
The Congress, which has been going solo in Bihar on the insistence of Rahul Gandhi since the 2009 parliamentary polls, had not fared well in any election since then and in the recently-held Maharajganj by-poll its candidate Jitendra Swami had even lost security deposit.