Nitish Kumar defends meeting with Rahul Gandhi

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today justified his meeting with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi saying that the latter has emerged in a leadership role within his party and will have a key place in deciding his party's political lines.

"I had a scheduled meeting with Rahul Gandhi yesterday in the backdrop that the Congress is very much part of the plan to firm up a broad alliance comprising the JD(U) and RJD among others for the assembly polls in Bihar," he said.

Not only is the Congress a part of a proposed broad alliance of secular parties ahead of the Bihar assembly polls, but it has also been supporting the JD(U) government in Bihar for the past two years, Kumar said as a justification for meeting the Congress Vice President.

He also clarified that his meeting with Gandhi was not the first meeting between them. However, he refused to give details of their previous interactions.

The senior JD(U) leader exuded confidence that the crucial talks among Janata Parivar members were aimed to ensure unity of all allies and not to cause division within its ranks.

On the Janata Parivar meeting yesterday, Kumar said that a committee of three members each from the RJD and JD(U) will be formed to finalise seat sharing among the allies.

He was talking to reporters after hosting the weekly 'Janata Ke Durbar Mein Mukhyamantri' programme at the Chief Minister's office-cum-residence here.

A two-hour-long meeting was held between Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad yesterday at the residence of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was approached by the two parties to broker peace after days of sparring between their leaders.