After Nitish Kumar's Iftar attendance, Lalu Yadav's son Tej Pratap fuels buzz

An Iftar party was held at Rabri Devi's Patna home where Nitish Kumar's presence triggered hints of increasing proximity between the former allies.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's visit to former CM Rabri Devi's home on Friday, hours after her husband Lalu Yadav got bail in a corruption case, raised questions if a message was being sent by the ruling JDU in Bihar to its coalition partner - the BJP. Even though, Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu's younger son, dismissed the buzz, his elder son, Tej Pratap seems to have fuelled the speculation.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar at Rabri Devi’s Iftaar party on Friday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo) 

An Iftar party was held at Rabri Devi's Patna home where Kumar's presence triggered hints of increasing proximity between the former allies. "This is politics and chaos is usual... Today he is in power, tomorrow there could be a change. Earlier, I had put a 'no entry' board. But now it has been replaced with 'Entry - Nitish Chacha ji.' Now he has come," Tej Pratap Yadav told news agency ANI.

While the state elections in Bihar were held in 2020, Lalu Yadav's elder son, 34, further added: "We will form a government and the game will unfold. This is a secret... had secret talks with Nitish Ji." But he added that the LJP's Chirag Paswan and the BJP's Shahnawaz Hussain were also in attendance on Friday.

The Bihar chief minister was said to have spent 20 minutes at the party. This was a rare visit by the 71-year-old leader - the first in five years - to the first family of the RJD, the main opposition party in the state.

Tejashwi Yadav, the leader of opposition in the state assembly said on Friday: “We have given invitations to all the people whether it is from BJP, JDU or LJP and it has been a tradition that everyone participates in the Iftar party."

The Bharatiya Janata Party is the dominant partner in the NDA alliance in Bihar after it won 74 seats in the 2020 assembly polls against Kumar's Janata Dal United which could win only 43 seats.

(With inputs from ANI)