Governor D.Y. Patil on Sunday approved nine bills, including those related to five universities, which his predecessor Devanand Konwar had turned down.

Patil cleared the bills during his hour-and-a-half meeting with chief minister Nitish Kumar that the Raj Bhavan officials described as “courtesy call”. However, several rounds of “courtesy calls” made by Nitish to Konwar had failed to yield any result.

Raj Bhavan and the state government stayed on war path as long as Konwar was the governor as he had rejected the bills related to the five universities and appointed vice-chancellors in six universities without “having a word” with the government.

But Patil set the records straight on Sunday by giving his nod on several bills related to the five universities, besides the Bodhgaya Temple (Amendment) Bill, 2013, Bihar Land Dispute Resolution Bill, 2013, Bihar Appropriation Bill, 2013, and Bihar Appropriation (Excess Expenditure) Bill, 2013.

In fact, Patil too had, earlier, refused to give his assent to the Patna University and Bihar universities’ related bills on the plea that they were not in full conformity to the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC). But the state government executed the due correction in the bills, getting it passed by both the Houses of the state legislature during its winter session. “Unlike Konwar who had rejected the bills without assigning reasons, Patil had pointed out some relevant technical problems in the bills which we corrected,” said an education department official.

Nitish’s unscheduled meeting with the governor on Sunday evening also sparked speculations about the expansion of his council of ministers pending since he parted ways with the BJP in June. The sources said Nitish might have discussed about the expansion of his ministry and also the nomination on 12 state legislative council seats pending for the last two years. But neither the Raj Bhavan nor the chief minister’s office was ready to officially divulge the content of the dialogue between Nitish and Patil.

While three Independent MLAs who supported the government after the JD(U)-BJP split and some JD(U) legislators were looking for making entry in the cabinet, Nitish is also under fire from the BJP as well as the RJD for keeping his ministry expansion in abeyance.