Patna, June 28: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today convened an emergency meeting of the JD(U)’s key functionaries to formulate a strategy to counter the stepped-up attack from the BJP.

The marathon meeting attended by all the JD(U) legislators, ministers and several Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs lasted for four hours — from 3pm to 7pm — at the chief minister’s 1 Aney Marg residence. Nitish reportedly expressed his concern over the silence of the party’s spokespersons and leaders on the virulent attack from the BJP leaders.

That Nitish is “seriously concerned” and is in a mood of intense counter-offensive was evident from senior party MPs Shivanand Tiwari, Shabir Ali and Bashishtha Narayan Singh flying in from New Delhi on a short notice to attend the meeting.

The state JD(U) president, Bashishtha Narayan Singh, said: “The meeting was aimed at strengthening the organisation and fuelling fire in the belly of the cadres in the run-up to the next Lok Sabha elections.” He denied that the government was under any pressure from the BJP’s attack. “The government is as strong as ever and it will go from strength to strength,” he said.

What apparently prompted the chief minister to convene the emergency meeting was systematic and unabated attack from his former friends — right from the BJP’s national president, Rajnath Singh, to former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. Sources said Nitish would convene another broad-based meeting of the office-bearers, including all the MPs, ministers, legislators and leaders of the party’s various cells, on July 7 to give the final shape to the strategy to return the BJP’s fire.

Emerging from the meeting at Aney Marg, the JD(U)’s disciplinary committee chairman, Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, strongly rebutted the BJP leaders’ charges.

“I vividly remember how Shahnawaz was restless for a Nitish’s programme in his Bhagalpur constituency before the 2009 elections,” Gyanu said, adding that the BJP leaders had no “moral authority” to attack the chief minister as all of them had stated after the 2010 elections that they had won the polls because of Nitish.

Four days after the JD(U) severed ties with the BJP, Rajnath descended on the city with his colleagues from the state to paint the “betrayer’s” image of Nitish. The state BJP leaders followed up the onslaught.