File Photo: Actor and BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha
On a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi ripped into Nitish Kumar at a mega election rally in north Bihar's Muzaffarpur, one of his party leaders Shatrughan Sinha met the Bihar Chief Minister at his residence in Patna.
"It was a courtesy call and I consider him as guardian of the state," Mr Sinha said after the meeting. He also described Mr Kumar as the best chief minister the state has ever seen.
Reports suggest Mr Sinha has been 'unhappy ' for a while now, sulking at not been given a berth in Mr Modi's cabinet at the Centre after last year's Lok Sabha poll victory for the BJP, despite his seniority in the party.
Mr Sinha, an MP from Patna, was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet from 2003 to 2004. The other parliamentarian from Patna, Ram Kripal Yadav, is a minister in the Centre.
He, however, said that the meeting should not be accorded a political colour. "If I go and meet Kumar over a cup of tea, no meaning should be attached to it," he said.
Sources close to Mr Sinha insist the meeting was to discuss development projects being executed by the Bihar government in his constituency.
Mr Sinha was present on Saturday morning at the function where Mr Modi launched a host of central government schemes for Bihar. He had, however, skipped a function a few days ago in Patna where BJP chief Amit Shah flagged off some 250-odd hi-tech campaign raths, saying he was not invited.
A few days ago, Mr Sinha had said that leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi should be considered being named as NDA's chief ministerial candidate for Bihar polls despite clear indications from the BJP that it will fight the state elections with Mr Modi as their main face.
The outspoken actor was among the voices critical of the BJP's decision to project Mr Modi as the star of its 2014 election campaign. He also needled the party by describing one of Mr Modi's biggest critics, Nitish Kumar, as 'potential prime minister' before doing a neat U-turn months later, calling Mr Modi his "action hero."