As soon as Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee emerged on the dais, chief minister Nitish Kumar, JDU MP Sharad Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad warmly shook hands with her.
When Arvind Kejriwal came on, Nitish embraced him before Lalu too lunged to hug the Delhi chief minister and escort him to his seat. Sharad Yadav gave CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechuri a bear hug.
The body language at Nitish Kumar's swearing-in ceremony on Friday spelled a coming together of anti-BJP forces, a group hug of comrades up against a common foe, a shoulder-shoulder camaraderie made all the more significant given that key states like Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu go to the polls next year.
The message did not elude senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu, who was there as the representative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sure, Naidu chatted animatedly with Lalu, sat next to former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, and was seen sharing something on his mobile phone screen with Nationalist Congress Party stalwart Sharad Pawar. But when it came to the hugging and holding up of hands, Naidu looked forlorn.
His party colleagues in Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi and Nand Kishore Yadav, were tucked away in the southern corner of the dais, talking among themselves.
Rahul Gandhi joined the dais at 3pm, an hour after the ceremony had begun.
He shared smiles and pleasantries with regional stalwarts and all Congress leaders, before taking a seat beside Deve Gowda.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Arunachal chief minister Nabam Tuki (Arunachal Pradesh) and Sikkim chief minister P.K. Chamling sat together.
There are reports doing the rounds that these Congress chief ministers might help each other against the BJP in their respective states going to the polls next year.
Farooq Abdullah, the National Conference president who had come with his son Omar Abdullah, articulated the not-so subliminal message: It was time to get "Delhi bound" now, the leader from Jammu and Kashmir told Nitish. He repeated it to reporters: "Nitish should look forward for Delhi."
In other words, the Bihar chief minister should be the national rallying point for anti-BJP forces to unite.
Pawar, former Jharkhand chief ministers Babulal Marandi and Hemant Soren, INLD leader Abhay Chowtala and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda - all leaders who were stung by the BJP in their respective states after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister - seemed visibly happy to savour Nitish's halting of Narendra Modi's juggernaut.
There was some solace for the BJP - the absence of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Uttar Pradesh chief minister son Akhilesh. Sources said that Mulayam had stopped his son and other party leaders from attending Nitish's swearing-in.
The BJP grapevine interpreted Mulayam and Akhilesh's absence from the galaxy of the anti-BJP leaders at Nitish's show as the Samjawadi Party supremo's "lasting move" to keep a distance from an anti-BJP coalition. But then again, SP's pulling out in the middle of campaign season failed affect to affect the Bihar Grand Alliance's prospects.
After the swearing-in, Naidu was conspicuously absent at the high tea hosted by Nitish at 1 Aney Marg, the Bihar chief minister's official bungalow. The do turned out to be a rendezvous for most of the non-BJP chief ministers, former chief ministers and anti-BJP regional stalwarts gearing up to take on the BJP in battles to come.
