Differences have cropped up between Bihar’s ruling allies, Nitish Kumar’s JDU and the BJP, over bringing back around 12,000 students from the state who are stranded in the Kota education hub of Rajasthan because of the lockdown.

Senior BJP leaders are putting pressure on JDU president and chief minister Nitish to facilitate the return of the students — enrolled in Kota’s coaching institutes to prepare for medical and engineering entrance examinations — after he made it clear that it was not feasible to do so unless the Centre relaxed lockdown guidelines pertaining to inter-state travel.

The Bihar BJP leaders have also demanded that the state government bring back migrant workers stuck in other parts of the country.

Former BJP MLA Shivesh Ram has written to Nitish about his daughter being stuck in Kota and demanded that it “would be better if Bihar students stranded away from home are brought back. It will also be good if all the migrant workers stuck in different parts of the country are also brought back home.”

Bihar BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said the state government was concerned about the students, but also stressed that they should be brought back soon. “Other states are bringing back their students from Kota,” Patel said.