Nitish: On course

Mumbai, April 14: Nitish Kumar landed in Mumbai this evening to attend tomorrow’s centenary celebrations of Bihar, the tension surrounding the event having ebbed after Raj Thackeray’s telephone chat with the Bihar chief minister on Friday.

After landing at the domestic airport in the city, Nitish headed for a private dinner at Powai in central Mumbai. He will be staying at the state guesthouse Sahyadri in south Mumbai.

Before going to Sahyadri, Nitish would also be meeting Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan at his bungalow Varsha, a 10-minute drive from the guesthouse.

On Sunday, Nitish would be attending an event at Trident Hotel in south Mumbai along with Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman U.K. Sinha.

In the evening, the chief minister would preside over the Bihar Divas celebrations at the Somaiyya grounds at Sion in central Mumbai.

The Bihar Divas function had come under a cloud after Raj, the migrant-baiter chief of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), had dared Nitish to attend the event in Mumbai.

However, the cloud cleared following Raj’s phone chat with the Bihar chief minister yesterday. The organisers of the event assured Raj that the function would be a social and cultural one and non-political in nature.

Even the Shiv Sena, which had initially expressed displeasure over the event being held in Mumbai, has piped down.

In the editorial of Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Nitish and the event both got approval from party chief Bal Thackeray.

“Bihar is also a part of our country. It was lagging behind in development and was poor. Such a state under Nitish Kumar’s great leadership has been veering towards development. For this we have publicly praised Nitish Kumar many times. If every state were to work towards their development like that, then the immigrant population coming to Mumbai would lessen. Nitish Kumar is exactly trying to achieve the same and he should be supported in this agenda by us,” the senior Thackeray said in the Saamna editorial, while criticising Raj’s flip-flop over the event in the past two days.

The Mumbai administration has promised adequate security for Nitish during his visit.