Flanked by top Bihar BJP leaders, Nadda calls on Nitish

BJP working president Jagat Prakash Nadda on Tuesday called on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and understood to have discussed the political situation in the state where assembly polls are due next year.

The partys national general secretary in-charge for the state Bhupendra Yadav, Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and state president Sanjay Jaiswal accompanied Nadda to 1, Anney Marg, where he was warmly welcomed and presented with a bouquet by Kumar.

The Bihar Chief Minister, who heads the JD(U), has been an ally of the BJP since 1996 and the coalition has ruled the state since 2005 when it unseated from power the once formidable RJD headed by Lalu Prasad.

At their meeting which lasted for about an hour, the leaders are understood to have discussed the political situation in the state where assembly polls are due next year and a clear signal has been given by party chief Amit Shah, from whom Nadda is slated to take over next month, that Kumar would once again lead the NDA at the hustings in the state.

The NDA in Bihar, which also comprises LJP founded by Ram Vilas Paswan and now headed by his son Chirag Paswan, is high on confidence since the Lok Sabha polls this year when it decimated the opposition winning 39 out of 40 seats.

It was Nadda's first visit to the city since becoming his partys working president.

At a function he addressed earlier in the day, the BJP leader had fondly remarked that he was "familiar with each and every street of Patna" where he was born and had spent his childhood before moving to his home state of Himachal Pradesh.

Before departure, Nadda was presented by Kumar with an Angavastram and a memento.