In break up, Nitish Kumar and BJP both refer to the dinner that wasn't

Patna: In their post-mortem of their  relationship, which flat-lined yesterday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the BJP have expectedly swapped recriminations. "

Both sides  have also referred to a dinner in 2010, which could have torn them apart.  The fact that it didn't, each team alleges, proves how hard it worked to stay together.

"We did not object to Nitish Kumar cancelling dinner when Narendra Modi came to Bihar in the larger interests of the state.We did not want to let Lalu Yadav come back in Bihar, so we decided to continue with the alliance at any cost, said Sushil Kumar Modi, who was Deputy Chief Minister till Sunday when he was sacked by Mr Kumar along with 10other ministers.

On Sunday, when Mr Kumar declared the alliance over, he cited the same dinner, stating, "Whenever there has been an interference from outside, we have had problems in Bihar."

In June  2010, the BJP held its National Executive session in Patna.  Mr Kumar asked senior leaders of the BJP to dinner at his house.  His invite did not extend to Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat and he told BJP leaders to come for dinner minus Mr Modi.  That was hard for the BJP to accept. But then, hours before the  dinner, Mr Kumar dialled up the tension by cancelling the event.

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His  decision was in reaction to ads that the BJP had placed in local Patna papers, showing Mr Modi sharing a stage with Mr Kumar. The picture had been taken at a rally in Punjab a year before during the 2009 parliamentary election. The ad highlighted that Gujarat had donated crores to Bihar when it was deluged with floods. Mr Kumar returned the money too.