Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday made a `'thanksgiving' trip to Ekhatta village in Madhubani district. In this Muslim-dominated village, the CM and his entourage had lunch with the villagers in the 1884 built residential Madrasa Rahmania. 

During the by-election for the Laukaha assembly seat in November last which the JD(U) retained with big margin, it is said that the party got the Muslim vote en bloc. Nitish himself admitted that the margin of victory was solely because of the Muslim support. 

The JD(U) takes the victory as a turning point in its career as this kind of support of Muslims to the party was not witnessed even during 2010 assembly election. For the party, such huge support was unexpected as the RJD candidate in the fray was a local Muslim and the JD(U) nominee a greenhorn. "Hari Prasad Sah, the former minister and local MLA, was not known to have cordial relations with minorities of his constituency and his son who recently won did not take care to seek Muslim votes," said a JD(U) leader. 

Nitish was happy to be in the company of the skull-capped madrasa boys and bearded teachers and village elders as well as women who thronged the campus to express their gratitude. One elder said, "We voted for various parties in the past, but never before any leader came to say thanks to us. It meant they had not acknowledged our support." 

JD(U) MLC Niraj Kumar, who had worked during the by-poll and was present at the Tuesday event, said, "The mood and voting pattern in this region proved beyond doubt that Lalu Prasad's social engineering in the form of Muslim-Yadav unity has shattered completely. This is a big political event in Bihar's political spectrum." 

Nitish also visited Madrasa Ittehadul Muslimeen at Bagha Kusumar village, hardly three km from Ekhatta where, too, he rubbed shoulders with local Muslims and students. He declared, "I thank you from the depth of my heart for your support. And I want to assure that this cordial relation would continue and I will try my best to come up to your expectations." 

Interestingly, the person behind organizing the meetings at both the madrasas was BJP MLCSanjay Jha. Soon after the by-poll, the CM had announced his decision to visit Ekhatta village and have supper with the local people. In fact, the CM was to begin his Seva Yatra in the first week of November, but due to announcement of by-election, he had to skip Madhubani. Now he is visiting the region to round off his first phase of yatra.