Meanwhile, hectic activity was seen at 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to party president Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi who shares the house with her husband and younger son Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy CM.
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Despite failing to secure a simple majority in Parliament, we will continue to see him on TV, newspapers, magazines, bill boards, vaccination certificates, railway stations, bus shelters, airports, sea ports, on the highway and on rural roads, sighs A Ganesh Nadar.
He is not just under attack from his opponent Shiv Chandra Ram of the RJD, but also by his uncle Paras.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
When pressed further, as to whether the doors were still open for the former ally, Prasad, who has known Kumar since their days as student leaders in the 1970s, replied "these are always open (khula hi rahta hai)".
Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari reveal that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's name is now doing the rounds as President Kovind's likely successor.
The Congress leadership is upset over Nath's remarks against many leaders of the INDIA bloc, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar, over seat sharing.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Kushwaha made the exasperated remark in reply to queries from journalists about Singh's relentless, and often personal, attacks on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Chandra Shekhar's uncharitable remarks about Ramcharitmanas which triggered a controversy.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha in April this year, once the remaining six vacancies under the nominated category are filled and those newly elected take oath.
Kishor claimed that Nitish may go for a tie-up with the BJP again if situation demands so.
It is a double century with a difference for the cricketer turned politician, who is the lead campaigner for the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in the state.
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
Loss of power in Bihar has upset the Bharatiya Janata Party's calculations for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls but a section of its leaders also see a chance for the party to break the dominance of regional parties in the state, like it has in Uttar Pradesh.
There is also speculation within the BJP that its national president J P Nadda, whose extended tenure will end by this month and who was among the leaders meeting Modi, may also be brought back in the government.
The Union home minister recalled that the BJP had won far greater number of seats in the last assembly polls than the JD(U) but Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept up his promise to back Kumar for another term in office.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
Even until Monday, some senior BJP leaders, including those from Bihar, were of the view that the JD-U leader was engaging in brinkmanship to pressure his bigger partner to be more accommodative.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
RCP Singh alleged that Kumar "had made up his mind to betray the mandate of 2020 when people had voted the NDA back to power."
While there are some new faces in the cabinet, leaders such as BJP president JP Nadda and Jual Oram have returned as ministers.
Yadav, 31, apparently referring to the age of the 69-year-old chief minister and said that he has got tired due to which he gives up when faced with a difficult situation -- be it the coronavirus pandemic or Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) outbreak in Muzaffarpur.
Without naming Chirag Paswan, the legislators are reported to have recalled the actions of the former Lok Janshakti Party chief during the 2020 state assembly polls while warning the CM that if they were not alert, it would not be good for the party.
JD-U leaders contend that R C P Singh may have misled the BJP leadership into believing that Nitish Kumar was ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
'Nitish Kumar's newly-formed alliance with BJP would unravel before the 2025 assembly polls in Bihar'
New faces may, however, be inducted in the council of ministers from the allies Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, he told reporters during his visit to Madhubani on Wednesday as part of his 'Samadhan Yatra'.
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
The bill to amend the law governing Waqf boards proposes far-reaching changes in the Wakf Act, 1995, including ensuring the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
"The meeting was very fruitful and we all are very happy with the outcome. I could not attend the press conference after the conclave as I had to come back to Patna. My effort is to unite all opposition parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and now things are taking shape," the Janata Dal-United leader said.
The no-frills ceremony comes a day after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD to form a 'mahagathbandhan' government.
Ever since Nitish embarked on the slippery path of trying to unite the Opposition against the BJP, he has repeatedly rebutted suggestions that the exercise was aimed at bringing himself centre stage. The problem is: It is not enough if he says so. Others have to say so as well, especially Congress, observes Aditi Phadnis.
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