The INDIA block might offer Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) national president Nitish Kumar the role of its convener, sources said.

The Congress and other Opposition party leaders are expected to discuss it with him in a virtual meeting within a couple of days.

According to sources, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh, K.C. Venugopal, and a couple of leaders from other parties are expected to connect with Nitish via a digital communication app.

The move has been planned to retain Nitish in the Opposition alliance, especially after the JDU national executive in Delhi on December 29 at which the Bihar chief minister expressed frustration with INDIA. He had accused it of not paying heed to any of his suggestions.

Sources said that the Congress had already discussed the plan with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar, regional parties in the southern states and the Left. None of them objected to it.

“We do not have any official intimation about it,” Bihar finance minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said. “Senior JDU leaders will sit together and discuss if any such proposal comes, but the final decision will be of our undisputed leader Nitish Kumar. All of us will accept it.”

Alleging delay in seat distribution in INDIA, Choudhary, who is a close confidant of Nitish, said that all political leaders and workers understood that the earlier it was done, the better it would be.

“It will be good if seat sharing happens soon in the alliance. The more it is delayed, the worse the result. Even the Congress accepts this. Delay is not good,” he added.

Choudhary asserted that Nitish was a leader who could “challenge anybody, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Such a politician whose work is acknowledged across the country is rare.”

The Bihar chief minister, while addressing senior leaders at the JDU national executive after assuming the charge as party president, had expressed dissatisfaction with INDIA.

“He (Nitish) had vented his frustration that his work, including the caste-based survey, was neither being acknowledged nor discussed in INDIA. The seat sharing was delayed despite his repeated request to finalise it at the earliest and no resolution was moved to provide special category status to backward states like Bihar, and one party was trying to dominate the alliance against the spirit of the coalition. He had asked us what should be done in such circumstances,” a senior JDU leader said.

Nitish’s speech at the JDU meet set the alarm bells ringing amid speculation that he could be gravitating towards the NDA again.

The Congress, by offering the position of INDIA convener to Nitish, might try not only to stop this but also put the ball in his court concerning the future of the alliance.

Now the question that arises is whether the JDU national president would accept such an offer because Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had proposed Kharge as the convener and prime ministerial candidate at the previous meeting of the alliance in Delhi on December 19.

Neither RJD chief Lalu Prasad nor his deputy chief minister son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav or anybody else had proposed Nitish’s name at that meeting.

However, the RJD has come out in favour of Nitish amid the speculation about the post of INDIA convener being offered to him.

“My party and I believe that Nitish Kumar should be made INDIA’s convener. No other leader is more suitable for the position than him,” RJD Rajya Sabha member Manoj Jha told reporters in Patna when asked about the issue.