WHO’S FIRST: Chief minister Nitish Kumar and Union minister Kapil Sibal each ask the other to light the ceremonial lamp at Bihta on Wednesday. Eventually, they did the honours together. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Bihta, July 3: The changing political landscape was in full display today when Nitish Kumar and Kapil Sibal shared the dais and presented a picture of bonhomie, with the Union minister even announcing a second National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELT) for the state.

Nitish and Sibal, who had till around a year ago engaged in verbal duels over the location of the Central University of Bihar, together lit the candle marking the inauguration of the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the first NIELT campus at Bihta, 35km southwest of Patna.

“Pahle aap, pahle aap,” each said when the ceremonial candle was offered to them. Having lit the candle, they sat on the dais, speaking to each other, portraying a picture of cordiality.

The setting had been markedly different the last time they shared a dais. That was on April 19, 2011, to lay the foundation of the IIT campus, also at Bihta. The tension between the two leaders had been palpable — they traded not-too-subtle jibes and failed to conceal their differences despite speaking in sugar-coated words.

Today each competed to praise the other. “You have been an extremely learned lawyer,” Nitish told Sibal, the Union minister for communications and information technology. “You began your parliamentary career from Bihar (Sibal had been elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time from the state in the nineties). Bihar expects you to champion its cause for special category status which will enable it to augment its growth rate by eight to nine per cent.”

Sibal in turn addressed Nitish as “bada bhai (elder brother)”. “I will keep advocating the cause of Bihar as much as I can. I will put forward your demand (for special category status) at the right place. Be sure of my continued help to the state,” he told Nitish.

As a gesture of the new found bonhomie between the JD(U) and the Congress, Sibal said Bihar could get a second NIELT if the government provided land.

Nitish had raised the issue of a second NIELT, preferably in north Bihar. “Going through the prospectus of NIELT, I have come to know that there are many states with more than one such centre. Bihar has a population of 10 crore and fits the bill for having two centres, with the second preferably in north Bihar,” he said.

“My ministry,” Sibal replied, “is seriously considering setting up another campus in Bihar but the state government has to provide land for this.”

A NIELT centre provides training to students, government and non-government employees in electronics, communication, and information technology with courses in basic computer literacy to MTech. The institute also provides formal courses such as BCA and MCA, apart from computer language courses like C and C++.

In what might have come as music to Nitish’s ears, Sibal attacked Narendra Modi, without naming the Gujarat chief minister, and his BJP. “Some people (read Modi) were doing havabaji (creating waves) on TV and heaping praise on themselves without doing much,” Sibal said. “The Centre is trying to bring the food security bill which will cover about 67 per cent of the country’s population. But the BJP repeatedly boycotted the House and in the process hurt the interest of the poor.”

Sibal and Nitish had earlier sparred with each other over the location of the CUB. But following Nitish’s growing distance with the BJP, Sibal had announced two central universities for Bihar, one at Gaya — his choice — and the other at Motihari, the chief minister’s preferred site.

The regional office of NIELT at Biscomaun Towers is being upgraded to the permanent campus in Bihta. The department of electronics & information technology under Sibal’s ministry approved the setting up of the centre on 15 acres in Bihta at a cost of Rs 57.30 crore.