Nitish Kumar Arrives In Bhubaneswar For ‘Luncheon’ With Naveen Patnaik Amid Opp Unity Buzz

Bhubaneswar: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar arrived in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. He is scheduled to meet his Odisha counterpart and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik at the latter’s residence here this afternoon. 

According to sources, the two CMs are likely to discuss a wide range of political issues during the nearly one-hour meeting over lunch. They are likely to brief the media after the meeting.

Nitish is spearheading Opposition unity talks to cobble up a grand opposition alliance against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This meeting too is a part of the efforts to bring all non-NDA parties together, reports suggest.

The BJD, which has been maintaining distance from both BJP and Congress, has avoided tilting either towards the NDA or evolving non-BJP alliance so far. The ruling party of Odisha has so far skipped all meetings aimed at forging a third front. While the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD has been supporting the Narendra Modi government at the Centre in almost all issues since 2019, the state units of the two parties are gradually adopting an aggressive stand against each other ahead of the twin polls.

Naveen and Nitish had a one-on-one meeting on March 7, 2017, when JD-U & RJD had an alliance government in Bihar. Not much politics was discussed at that meeting.