Today in Politics: PM Modi and Nitish Kumar to share the stage in Bihar, Rahul yatra resumes

A day before the Opposition comes together for one of its biggest rallies since the INDIA alliance was formed last year, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, ironically the leader who took the initiative to form the Opposition bloc, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will share the stage at events in both Aurangabad and Begusarai. Both are Lok Sabha constituencies currently held by the BJP.

The PM will begin the day with public programmes in West Bengal’s Nadia district and will arrive in Aurangabad around 2.30 pm. He will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of projects worth Rs 21,400 crore. Among the projects whose foundation stone he will lay is a six-lane bridge across the Ganga that will be developed as a part of the Patna Ring Road, according to a statement from the PMO. This bridge, the PMO said, will be one of the longest river bridges in India. Modi is also scheduled to lay the foundation stone of a Unity Mall in Patna.

Modi will then head to Begusarai, the constituency of his Cabinet colleague Giriraj Singh, and unveil multiple oil and gas sector projects across the country worth Rs 1.48 lakh crore. For Bihar, the PM is set to inaugurate several development initiatives worth more than Rs 13,400 crore on Saturday.

In context: While Nitish met the PM in Delhi last month after yet another switch back to the NDA in January, this will be the first time in almost two years they will share the stage at a public event. The two have a long history of sharing a topsy-turvy relationship, with Nitish’s oscillations between the BJP and the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan dictated as much by realpolitik as his national ambitions and instinct for political survival.

Nitish, who joined hands with the BJP in 1995, first quit the NDA in