I and Nitish exchanged barbs during childhood days, says Lalu Prasad Yadav

Patna, Aug 12: With BJP highlighting the barbs exchanged between Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad against each other when they were rivals to dub their alliance as "unethical and opportunistic", the RJD president today claimed that we said happened unintentionally in "Baal Kaal" (childhood phase).

"We talked against each other in Baal Kaal (childhood phase) and have forgotten all those things now," Prasad said in reply to a question triggering a peal of laughter even from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sitting by his side at the joint press conference.

"Many things come and pass away during Baal Kaal," he said. "What we said or did not say about each others all these are matter of past and happened in Baal Kaal.

Now we have come together to protect the country from being divided by communal BJP and RSS," the RJD chief said justifying his bonding with Kumar to take on a surging BJP in coming state poll.

Many BJP leaders have asserted that they would play audio cassettes of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar comments made against each other as rivals during campaigning for the ensuing assembly polls. Prasad had on several occasions said Kumar had "teeth in his stomach" to point out his cunningness.

Kumar had been also been critical of Prasad describing the RJD rule as "Atank raj" and reminding RJD chief that "days of oiling lathi is over as its time to fill ink in pen".

To counter it, Kumar has been harping on the reported statement by LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan to the then Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf during a visit to Pakistan that he (Paswan) was the minister who had resigned from Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet over Godhra riots.

PTI