In what may be seen as another sign that all's not well in the BJP's alliance with Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, no welcome advertisements for Prime Minister Narendra Modi were given by the Nitish Kumar government ahead of his visit to Patna today.
The absence becomes starker when one sees newspapers in Jharkhand — a state ruled by an anti-BJP alliance led by Hemant Soren — filled with such ads. PM Modi is to visit Deoghar in Jharkhand before Patna the same day.
Advertisement issued by the Jharkhand government today.
In Patna, he will inaugurate a Centenary Pillar on the assembly premises as part of a closing ceremony to mark 100 years of the building. This is the first time a prime minister is coming to the Bihar assembly complex. That's being attributed to the influence of Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who comes from the BJP. PM Modi will lay the foundation of a museum too.
While there is no "welcome" advertisement from the assembly today, Mr Sinha underlined that there was one that came out yesterday. He added, "The entire government is working overtime to ensure the PM's visit to the assembly is a historic one." The ad issued yesterday was a public invitation.
Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar's political relationship has seen ups and downs.
A number of senior JDU leaders said the absence of welcome ads from the government "may be a human error". To say that it's been done intentionally would be an exaggeration, they insisted, not willing to be named. They also underlined that the Prime Minister is visiting on invitation of the Speaker and thus "the assembly secretariat is active for that". "Whatever cooperation was expected from the state government departments, it was given," said a JDU leader.
There is, however, another ad that has caught attention. Businessman Jeevan Kumar, representing an organisation called Hindu Jagran Manch, has issued a full-front-page welcome ad for PM Modi.
This ad by a businessman features only BJP leaders besides PM Modi and himself.
Jeevan Kumar has been in the sand business for years, and has made news too. Last year, when senior leaders from the ruling alliance attended his son's birthday party, Nitish Kumar was so angry with those from the JDU that he did not talk to many of them for months, it is learnt.
Before coming to Patna, PM Modi will inaugurate the building for an All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) and an airport in Jharkhand's Deoghar, besides laying the foundation of some projects. The central government has given ads in several newspapers about this.
The Bihar alliance has seen some disagreements between the partners over the past few months, a recent one being over the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme. While the BJP continued to defend the scheme despite protests - particularly in Bihar - the JDU spoke against the four-year contractual hiring of soldiers.
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