The big political question of Saturday is this: What will Nitish Kumar’s deal with the BJP look like?

The Bihar CM and Janata Dal (United) supremo is no stranger to negotiating with various parties in his long career marked with flip-flops. Now, as the BJP and the JD(U) alliance looks imminent once again, it is looking like the arrangement will be very similar to the post-2020 Assembly election scenario. Nitish looks set to return as Chief Minister at the head of the NDA government in Bihar and may have two Deputy CMs from the BJP.

More clarity on Nitish’s position going forward will be available on Saturday, with the BJP and JD(U) likely to hold party meetings and then convene a meeting of the alliance to choose Nitish as its leader. He is expected to stake a fresh claim to form the government with the BJP over the weekend.

But why did Nitish agree to partner up with a party that he once accused of trying to “split and finish” off the JD(U)?

As Santosh Singh writes, the answer may lie in the unease that Nitish is said to have felt in the current political set-up with the Congress, RJD, and the INDIA bloc overall.

At least seven JD(U) MPs were said to be in touch with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Nitish likely sensed that the party could split if he did not act and decided to move back to the NDA with his party’s political survival in mind. The frailties in the INDIA alliance and differences with the Congress are also said to have contributed to the decision.

For the BJP, an internal survey indicating that the NDA tally in the state would be below 25 this time was one of the reasons why it agreed to reopen communication channels with its former ally. In 2019, when the JD(U) was a part of it, the NDA won 39 of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats.

Recommended reading: Nitish Kumar as CM and two Deputy CMs from BJP: JD(U)-BJP govt starts taking shape

A tussle between judges

A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court comprising CJI D Y Chandrachud and the four most senior judges of the court — Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose — will hold a special sitting on Saturday to consider the developments in the Calcutta High Court, where a judge has accused a fellow judge of “acting clearly for some political party in this state”.

On Thursday, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court directed that a CBI investigation into alleged irregularities in MBBS admissions in the state would continue despite an order of a Division Bench to the contrary. In the written order, he levelled accusations against Justice Soumen Sen.

The observations that the top court makes in this sensitive matter will be tracked during the day. Parties in West Bengal might also react to these developments.

In context: In the past, Justice Gangopadhyay has had frequent tussles with the Trinamool Congress (TMC)-led state government. In April 2023, the Supreme Court pulled him up over an interview he gave to regional news channel ABP Ananda in September 2022 in which he discussed the teachers’ recruitment scam trial.

The TMC has often been at the receiving end of Justice Gangopadhyay’s observations. Once, the judge even rapped senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and the party’s de facto number two, for his remarks against the judiciary. In November 2022, the TMC criticised the judge after he observed, during a hearing on the school jobs scam, that he might have to ask the Election Commission to cancel the recognition of the Mamata Banerjee-led outfit as a political party and withdraw its logo.

PM Modi to address NCC cadets

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the annual NCC PM Rally at the Cariappa parade ground in New Delhi on Saturday. More than 2,200 NCC cadets and young cadets from 24 foreign countries will be a part of this year’s rally.

This meeting comes two days after the PM’s virtual address to around 30 lakh first-time voters from across India where he touched upon a wide range of talking points for the Lok Sabha elections, What stood out from the address was the PM’s language that tried to frame issues in a language that spoke to the youth.

Ahead of the elections, every address of the PM will be closely watched for the narrative he and the BJP put forward to reach out to young voters.

On Thursday, the party released the BJP’s official campaign song. There too, the party’s focus was on youth. It shows young entrepreneurs and says that the Modi regime is making people “atmanirbhar (self-reliant)” along with an emphasis on the delivery of the PM’s welfare programmes.

— With PTI inputs