The Pakistan parliamentarian delegation with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar in New Delhi on Thursday. (PTI)

Nitish Kumar is set to offer a warm welcome to a 21-member parliamentary delegation from Pakistan landing here on Saturday, a move political observers feel is likely to boost the chief minister’s secular credentials.

Sources in the government said the delegation, led by the ruling Pakistan People’s Party secretary-general Jahangir Badar, would arrive at the Jai-prakash Narayan International Airport at 8.30am on Saturday. It will reach Samvad Bhavan, adjacent to Nitish’s 1 Aney Marg house, for a one-to-one interaction with the chief minister over breakfast.

Assembly Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary will host a sumptuous lunch for the guests on the Legislature premises. “The delegates will interact with our various legislative committees to exchange their experiences to address people’s issues in their country,” Choudhary told The Telegraph.

What has prompted the observers to conjecture about the Pakistani team helping consolidate Nitish’s secular credentials is the fact that Lalu Prasad, who had visited Pakistan in 2003 as part of the similar track-II diplomacy, had earned popularity among the Muslims by his unconventional demeanour. The RJD chief, who had gone to Pakistan with co-parliamentarians like Ram Vilas Paswan and Ram Jethmalani, had moved around in Lahore marts, picking up potatoes and drawing a huge fan following. His act had prompted then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to praise Lalu for his ways with the common masses. Nitish, known for his meticulous ways unlike Lalu’s rustic streaks, has apparently planned to entertain the Pakistan delegates in his own “sophisticated” way.

Choudhary said: “We have decided to show the Pakistan delegation the statues of the seven martyrs on the premises of the House who had sacrificed their life during the 1942 Quit India Movement to earn Independence,” The Speaker added: “The statues will remind our Pakistani brothers and sisters how our forefathers had fought together for the cause of Independence.”

The government has made elaborate arrangements for the delegates’ sightseeing. They will visit the historical Maner Sharif and Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library. Located on the western outskirts of Patna, Maner Sharif has a magnificent mausoleum built in the memory of Sufi saint Makhdum Daulat in 1608 by then Bihar governor Ibrahim Khan. The Khuda Bakhsh Library houses manuscripts of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, besides that of several other academics and ruling elites of the medieval period. The guests will enjoy a dinner at the Sheikhpura-based home of bureaucrat-turned JD(U) MP N.K. Singh to the tunes of Sufi songs.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said: “The delegation’s interaction with their parliamentary peers and people in Bihar will help remove the misgivings between the two nations.”