Patna, April 8: Nitish Kumar’s bouncer that politicians should not interfere in cricket has set the cat among the pigeons in the state’s three cricket associations.

The person at the receiving end of the bodyline deliveries has been former chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

First, BJP MP and Association of Bihar Cricket president Kirti Azad appealed against Lalu Prasad for damaging the cricket scene in Bihar yesterday. Today, Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) alleged that Lalu had promoted his son Tejaswi’s career rather than the game in Bihar.

Aditya Verma, secretary, CAB said: “Accept it or not but the bitter truth is that Lalu has always promoted his cricketer-son Tejaswi and ignored the rest of the cricketers in Bihar. When BCA was active and Lalu was a Union minister, he asked for favours from Sharad Pawar to get his son into the Indian team. When Lalu was the chief minister, he sent his son to Malaysia with the Under-19 India team though Tejaswi was not selected for it. He went there to learn the game with other players.”

Verma also said that after Tejaswi’s disastrous performance in the recently concluded Jharkhand Premier League (JPL), where he represented Bihar-based franchisee Frontline, did not merit his selection in the Delhi Daredevils team.

“Can anyone tell me why, after his disastrous performance in JPL, has he been included in Delhi Daredevils? He did not even score a half century. His performance was pathetic. He just took a few wickets. Don’t you think Lalu is behind all this? Does Tejaswi deserve to play in the Indian Premier League? Lalu’s son has been selected by violating all laws,” added Verma.

CAB president Prem Ranjan Patel, who is also a BJP MLA, also attacked leader of the Opposition Abdul Bari Siddiqui for saying that Nitish did not know the alphabets of the game.

Patel said: “We are the true supporters of cricket and only our association is authentic. We must get complete recognition from the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) to promote cricket in the state. Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who is also the convener of BCA was the sports minister and did nothing for the cricket. They always take the credit of holding the ICC World Cup match, between Zimbabwe and Kenya, in 1996 at the Moin-Ul-Haq Stadium in Patna. But let me remind you that they were not part of the BCA then. The association office was then in Ranchi as Bihar and Jharkhand were not separated. It was BCCI who took the initiative.”

CAB officials announced they would organise a cricket tournament in the first week of May. Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand will be invited to take part in the competition.