Nand Kishore Yadav

Patna’s political world is literally a zoo, complete with a lion, mouse, chameleon, fox, owl and more, going by the metaphors Bihar politicians have been using lately.

A day after chief minister Nitish Kumar threatened to cut the BJP to size (“aukat mein la denge”) and turn it from a tiger into a mouse, the BJP hit back. “We do not fear threats made by a paper tiger,” retorted leader of the opposition Nand Kishore Yadav.

He recalled that according to legend, a hermit had turned a mouse into a lion. “But when the lion began to threaten the hermit, he turned it into a mouse again. Our party is known as the party of hermits and we know how to transform a paper tiger into a mouse again,” Yadav said.

Nitish’s former deputy, Sushil Kumar Modi, remarked that it is the people and not leaders who expose the aukat (level) of a political party.

“The people will cut the JD(U) to size in the 2014 elections,” he remarked, while expressing surprise at the chief minister’s choice of words.

“The chief minister has never been known to use such language. It just shows the level of frustration and arrogance. He is arrogant enough to declare that the NDA alliance in Bihar got votes only because of him,” Modi said.

The BJP pointed out that when the alliance was formed in 1995, Nitish Kumar’s erstwhile Samata Party had just 7 MLAs and the BJP 42, emerging as the major opposition in the state.

The war of words between the two former allies was not confined to the top leadership. JD(U) minister Shyam Rajak had called former BJP minister and MLA Ashwani Choubey a narbhakshi (man-eater) after Choubey lost seven of his family members when a deluge struck Uttarakhand during the former minister and his family’s pilgrimage there in June.

Choubey called Rajak a “politician eater” in his retort. “First he ate up Lalu Prasad and now he is in the process of finishing off Nitish Kumar,” said Choubey, no stranger to controversial statements.

He had himself created a flutter when he declared that he would break the Bihar chief minister’s neck. In the recent past, BJP and JD(U) leaders have compared each other to a chameleon, fox and even owl.

The bitterness between the two former allies has peaked during the ongoing legislative assembly session. JD(U) legislators are infuriated that the BJP disrupts the session, hurls charges and then walks out without hearing the government side.

“My former friends have become a hit-and-run opposition. They should sit and debate issues,” chief minister Nitish Kumar said. Not surprisingly, JD(U) legislators on Wednesday protested against the BJP’s “hit and run” policy.

In the recent past state JD(U) chief Basistha Narayan Singh and national vice-president of the BJP has advised leaders of both parties to mind the language they use. However, there are few takers for this kind of advice, as obvious from the things uttered lately. “It’ll get worse. We are going to see gutter-level politics between the two parties,” remarked a senior BJP leader.