Bihar BJP leaders with party chief Amit Shah at a meeting today.
A day after Sunday's rally by Nitish Kumar, Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad - the leaders of the non-BJP coalition -- the BJP held its first structured meeting with its alliance partners in Bihar yesterday.
BJP chief Amit Shah held a strategy session with key leaders of the Lok Janashakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and other allies. The contentious issue of seat sharing for the coming assembly elections -- which the allies have been pressing for -- has taken a backseat in face of the Opposition's show of unity.
Following Sunday's rally, there is now a need for NDA solidarity, sources said.
At the Patna rally, the Congress and the ruling Janata Dal United had crafted their message for farmers, a key votebank, claiming how, due to their agitation, the Narendra Modi government had been forced to backtrack on the land acquisition issue.
That morning, in his monthly radio programme Mann ki Baat, PM Modi had said the land ordinance will be allowed to lapse. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had claimed it was not just PM Modi's Mann ki Baat, but the people's.
During yesterday's meeting, the BJP leaders criticised the Chief Minister and his alliance partner, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, claiming the Bihar leaders had insulted Congress chief Sonia Gandhi by asking her to speak first at the rally.
"I have never seen Sonia ji speaking before someone else... She was insulted when she was reduced to speaking before Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar," said LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
"We are feeling bad... when she went to the stage, people had insulted her," added his coalition partner Jitan Ram Manjhi, who broke away from the JD(U) in February and formed his own party, the Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular).
Sources said seat sharing discussions could now be held next week, on September 5 and 6. "Seat sharing is not an issue here... We will discuss on seat sharing and we will announce it then," said party veteran Sushil Modi.