Patna, June 12
Posters, banners and saffron flags of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s dotted many roads of the Bihar capital as its two-day National Executive meeting began today amid tight security at the Maurya Hotel here. Though the party’s entire top brass is here, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is clearly the star.

The meet began with a speech by Nitin Gadkari, who is on his maiden visit here after becoming BJP president. It is also the first time Narendra Modi has set foot here since the bloody Gujarat riots of February-March 2002 and is getting a response befitting his status of the biggest Hindutva icon. Hoardings with his photograph are all over the city and clearly outnumber those of other party leaders like Gadkari and Arun Jaitely.

The RJD regime of Lalu Prasad under the then chief minister Rabri Devi never allowed Modi to come to Bihar. In the 2004 election, Nitish Kumar had started hoping to displace Lalu’s 15-year rule. Though Nitish never made a public issue of it, but realising the political consequences of identifying himself with the ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ he discreetly prevented Modi from setting foot in Patna, be it the 2004 General Election, the 2005 state Assembly Election or even as late as the 2009 General Election.

On Thursday, Modi had put out full-page advertisements in most local newspapers on how well Muslims were doing in Gujarat. Today’s papers have a full-page advertisement from a group of people calling themselves, “We the people of Bihar in Gujarat” and concludes saying, “We express our gratitude to Narendra Modi for all that he has done.” The BJP appeared to be standing by Narendra Modi, saying lunches and dinners were the last thing on party leaders’ minds. The party dismissed suggestions that strains with the JD(U) would have any impact on their ties ahead of the assembly polls in the state.

At the same time, the BJP indicated that Modi had not done anything that could attract the ire of its “tried and tested” friend, claiming it looked more a “manufactured row”. Putting up a defence for Modi, BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain said the party was not aware that Kumar was angry and made it clear that no party leader was going to meet Kumar to pacify him.