Patna,(BiharTimes): After party’s national chief, Sharad Yadav’s direct allegation that chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav have not risen above the caste politics the Janata Dal (United) has got plunged into a serious crisis.

The state party chief, Vashishth Narayan Singh, who also differed with the central leadership on the support to Arvind Kejriwal, in Varanasi said that his party president should avoid making such statements in public.

However, a day later Sharad simply said that if he had named Nitish, it was simply a slip of tongue. He also accused the electronic media of distorting his speech.

But senior party leaders, including ministers and legislators refuse to accept his explanation. They said that he is too mature a politician. Nobody can believe that it was just a slip of tongue.

Sharad’s remarks created further suspicion as on Saturday he met the BJP leader Syed Shahnawaz Husain at the Patna airport. Though it was just a five-minute long meeting political observers are attaching much meaning to it as it came only a day after Sharad had equated Nitish with Lalu and gave the BJP ample ammunition to fire.

It was none else but Shahnawaz, who later said that Sharad Yadav has clearly said that Nitish and Lalu indulge in caste politics and not in the politics of development.

The party rank and file too are accusing Sharad of raking up totally unnecessary controversy and that too when the election is going on. Not only that he publicly scolded the Muzaffarpur candidate of the party, which did not go down well. “How will the voters vote for such a candidate now when its president is rebuking him,” it is being asked.