Lalu received two stitches after smashing his head against his SUV on Friday night. Doctors said the injuries were innocuous. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

New Delhi/Patna, May 4: Lalu Prasad smashed his head against a window when his car hit a big pothole on the way to Raghopur last night. But the jolt came this morning. When his phone began ringing.

Tring Tring.

Phone operator to Lalu: “Sir, Modi sahib ka phone hai.”

Lalu: “Modi sahib?.. Achcha Sushil Modi, give the phone to me.”

Operator: “Sushil Modi nahin sir... Narendra Modiji ka call hai.”

Lalu: “Ain (what?) Narendra Modi? Achcha baat karao (Let him talk to me).”

Lalu talking on the phone: “Narendra Bhai, aap ko call karne ke liye dhanyabad (thanks for calling me, Narendra Bhai). Matha mein chot lag gaya thaa, ab theek hoon (I was hit in the head, now I’m fine).

It was not known what Narendra Modi told him over the phone, but it set tongues wagging. More so after Modi tweeted: “Spoke to Laluji this morning. Hope he gets back to the best of health soon.”

“Yes, Modiji phoned me and asked, Laluji kya hua, kaise hua, zyada chot toh nahee aayee (What happened, how did it happen, hope the injuries weren’t severe)? But please don’t read political meaning into this,” Lalu said.

The Gujarat chief minister was among the first to call Lalu after the accident. Although the BJP refused to comment, sources said it was not often that Modi extended such courtesies to his political adversaries, especially one who persistently reminded him of the 2002 pogrom. “It was like North Pole getting close to South Pole,” remarked an RJD leader.

Sources said the call should be seen in the context of political developments in Bihar ever since Lalu’s arch foe, chief minister Nitish Kumar, distanced himself from Modi. The Gujarat chief minister, they maintained, might have wanted to nettle Nitish. However, beyond the limited political chafe, Modi, who has never concealed his national ambitions, has been “advised” by friends to soften the “rough edges” of his persona and start making friends in the Delhi political circuit.

In the backdrop of changing equations with Nitish, sources said, nobody in the BJP was particularly peeved with Modi for calling up Lalu, who used to be a red rag for the Sangh parivar ever since he ordered the arrest of L.K. Advani in 1990.

Nitish is the object of the Bihar BJP’s ire. A BJP minister even said: “Enemy’s enemy is always a friend.”

“If we had a veto, we would have ended the alliance long ago because as long as we are stuck with Nitish, we can’t propagate freely for Modi,” an MP from the state said.

Jagadanand Singh, Buxar MP from Lalu’s RJD, said that in politics, such “mail-milan” (social exchanges) were de rigueur. “Advaniji attended Laluji’s daughter’s wedding. He did not think that it was Laluji who arrested him in Samastipur. When Gujarat was devastated by the quake, Laluji sent Rs 15 crore, which was graciously accepted. The Gujarat government reciprocated by sending funds to Bihar during a serious flood. If somebody (Nitish) returned the money, obviously political considerations were operating. But the money that went was not from Laluji or Modiji’s personal accounts. It was a gesture of solidarity with the victims. Let me make it clear, the secular-communal divide is defined by Laluji on one side and Modi on the other. We won’t compromise with our ideology.”

Health minister Ashwini Choubey, close to Modi, said: “I called Laluji. Narendra Bhai too called him. It was a courtesy call. Nothing more.”

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, too, phoned Lalu and reportedly urged him to “take care and rest for a few days”. So did the Prime Minister, Ahmed Patel and BJP MPs Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha.

But Nitish did not. “He must be busy and anyway my health has not worsened because he did not enquire,” said Lalu.