Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar arrived in Delhi on Thursday to participate in the Janata Dal United (JDU) national executive after paying floral tributes to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley on his birth anniversary in Patna, and amid talks of an imminent political change on Bihar’s political horizon and denials about it.

The speculations pertaining to the change are related to the stepping down of JDU national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh, forming a new alliance in the state, or both.

Talks about Lalan falling out with Nitish started over three months ago with speculations about him trying to split the party and crossover to the fold of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad to install his (Lalu’s) son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as the chief minister.

It had led to Nitish hurriedly calling all the legislators and MPs of the party to his official residence in Patna and met them separately to enquire about it.

The chasm that started back then kept increasing due to alleged rude behaviour of Lalan with party workers and leaders, including building construction minister Ashok Choudhary; his growing closeness to Lalu and son Tejashwi, and the failure to diplomatically project Nitish as a suitable candidate to lead the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

Lalan, 68, who represents the Munger Lok Sabha constituency, has also been accused of instigating Nitish to oust party leaders and former Union ministers RCP Singh and Upendra Kushwaha, as well as, influencing him to quit the NDA and form a new Grand Alliance government in the state in August 2022.

There have also been income tax raids over on a few infrastructure firm owners in the past few months, said to be close to Lalan.

“To make matters worse, Lalan’s two-year term as JDU president is already over, and in the current situation, he could be asked to step down. Nitish may take the party’s reigns in his own hands. Two working presidents could be appointed to assist him,” a senior party leader told The Telegraph.

Sources said that minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Rajya Sabha member Ramnath Thakur, who is the son of former chief minister Karpoori Thakur and hails from the extremely backward caste (EBC), could be appointed as JDU working presidents.

“A national-level meeting of our party is held every year. This meeting has been scheduled accordingly. It is going to take place tomorrow (Friday) and we have arrived here today,” Nitish told reporters after landing in Delhi.