This sparked off a controversy with the Bihar Congress’ chief spokesman, Prem Chandra Mishra, sought his apology and urged the Election Commission to issue order for his arrest.

Nitish Kumar is yet to intervene though other NDA leaders, for example, Giriraj Singh, have come to Sharad’s rescue. Even Sharad Yadav has later clarified his stand.

The election campaign in Bihar is gradually shifting towards personality-bashing. Now the Janata Dal (United) leaders, even the chief minister, have chosen to target Rahul Gandhi more and the latter too has opened his front against Nitish Kumar. Rahul, in particular, is now not targeting RJD leader Lalu Yadav as much as he was doing initially. This has created speculation in the political circle: Is it that he had some post-poll prospect in mind?

However, there is another factor too. Congress always had the Upper Caste votes in mind, which was till a few months back strongly behind the NDA.

Besides, Rahul is now questioning the very claim of development in Bihar. Congress has repeatedly said that for the second phase of growth in the state it is essential that the same party be in power both in the Centre and in Bihar.

Rahul has in almost all the speeches asked if Bihar is really developing why the migration has gone up and no investment is coming to the state. Nitish, on his part, hit back by repeatedly accusing the Centre of step-motherly treatment.

Rahul’s attack is more focussed on Nitish Kumar rather than on the parties––Janata Dal (United) or the BJP. The latter comes under attack as a passing reference. For example, Nitish is being accused of having ideological partnership with the Hindutva Parivar and what was he doing in the Vajpayee cabinet when Gujarat was burning.

What is noticeable is that even if Lalu Yadav is coming under attack from both Rahul and Nitish no mention is made by any one of them against his partner, Ram Vilas Paswan, though his party, the LJP, still claims to have some clout on the Dalit votebank.

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