Though Thackerays have always been indulging in anti-North Indian diatribe, mostly against Biharis, Nitish Kumar never countered them so well as Digvijaya Singh had done now. Incidentally, Digvijaya is from Madhya Pradesh and has little to do with Bihar.

In fact Nitish chose to indulge in unnecessary slanging match with them for no big reason. True he has a point; that his chief secretary wrote a letter to the Maharashtra government protesting against the manner in which the Bihar Police was ignored and not informed before arresting a youth from Sitamarhi. But then there was little scope to indulge in wordy duel with Thackerays for so long.

Earlier this year too, Nitish locked his horns with Raj. But then he did something strange. His party MLC sought permission from Raj Thackeray before his visit to Mumbai. And when he went to Mumbai to address the Bihar Diwas celebration he hardly spoke anything on Bihar, but went on to praise Maharashtra.

Though there is no fault in eulogizing the host state, but those who attended the Bihar Diwas celebration there felt somewhat let down as the chief minister did not inspire them much.

Now instead of just targeting Raj Thackeray, who is considered close to Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, the Bihar chief minister got dragged into heated debate with Bal and Uddhav Thackeray, though fully knowing that their outfit Shiv Sena is one of the oldest constituents of the National Democratic Alliance.

Initially, Bal and Uddhav gave some anti-Bihari statements for local consumption as they are in competition with Raj. But Nitish went after them too.

However, Digvijaya Singh has shown that a non-Bihari can fight the battle for the cause of the people of the state in a much better way than a Bihari leader. What is more shocking for Thackerays is that the book was written by none else but Bal’s father and was published when the Shiv Sena-BJP was in power in the state in late 1990s.