The meeting assumes significance as it comes close on the heels of a dinner hosted by the prime minister for West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya a couple of days back. Though Buddhadeb was invited to help Dr Singh assuage the ruffled feathers of the CPM leadership, an invitation to Nitish at this juncture has raised many an eyebrow in the NDA.
The official talk is that Nitish has been invited for dinner being hosted in the honour of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. However, the grapevine has it that Manmohan may use the occasion to buttress his point and convince the JD (U) strongman that the nuclear deal was in the national interest.
Faced with an increasing onslaught launched by the NDA over the nuke deal, UPA managers have decided to go on offensive and drive a wedge within the NDA. Nitish is the tallest leader in the JD(U), a key constituent of the BJP-led alliance, and therefore attempts are underway to make him see reason why India needs to go ahead with the 123 treaty.  The “woo-Nitish” campaign kicked off on Sunday when former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh visited Nitish’s official residence to present him a memorandum over the flood situation in Bihar.
After the meet, the AICC general secretary, who is also in charge of Bihar affairs, showered praises on Nitish for effective handling flood relief work.
Sources in the CM Secretariat confirmed   that Nitish was scheduled to attend the dinner on August 22. The official reason cited was that the dinner had been hosted in honour of the Japanese PM.  “There will be  talks on the proposed IIT in Bihar, which is to be set up in collaboration with the Japanese Govt,” a aide added.