Nadda meets Nitish before concluding Patna tour, discusses assembly polls

BJP national president J P Nadda on Saturday called on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his counterpart in JD(U), and is understood to have discussed among or things state polls due later this year.

Accompanied by national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav, Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal, Nadda met chief minister at his official residence here.

JD(U) is an NDA ally running a coalition government in Bihar. assembly polls, to be held by vember, are of vital importance for coalition led by BJP, which has been sore after drubbings in Delhi and Jharkhand besides an unexpected setback in Maharashtra.

Nadda shared pictures of his meeting with Kumar — which lasted for over 30 minutes — on his Twitter handle and hailed chief minister's leadership of NDA in Bihar for having "ensured all-round development of state".

NDA, which in Bihar also includes Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, had put up its best-ever performance in Lok Sabha election last year wherein it grabbed 39 out of 40 seats and established leads in over 220 out of 243 assembly segments.

Nadda earlier in day addressed a meeting of party's 14-member core committee, which included Union ministers like Giriraj Singh, Nityanand Rai and Ashwini Kumar Choubey.

A disparaging remark by veteran RJD leader Jagadanand Singh about meeting between national presidents of BJP and JD(U), however, left saffron party fuming.

Singh, who heads RJD's state unit, likened two parties to lame persons trying to overcome deficiency by tying up.

In a strongly-worded statement, state BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand said, "Singh has been a veteran socialist, who appears to have lost his moorings with humiliation of working under those younger to him by 50 years.

"His frivolous remarks are a desperate attempt to appease Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, sons of jailed Lalu Prasad, who calls shots despite being in jail".