Senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Friday said Hindus did eat beef in ancient times, while BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi questioned chief minister Nitish Kumar's silence on the issue on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not touch it during two back-to-back rallies in Bihar.

Former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh tried to douse the fire - triggered by party chief Lalu Prasad's remark that Hindus eat beef - by saying Hindus did eat beef in ancient times and started worshipping cows only in the Buddhist era.

"People used to eat beef during the Vedic period and there is proof about it in the scriptures. It stopped when Buddhism became popular and slaughter of cows and draught animals stopped. Hindus started worshipping cows only when the religion revived itself after the Buddhist period," he said.

Raghuvansh, considered close to Lalu, said historian D.N. Jha had written about Hindus' beef-eating habits Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions, Myth of the Holy Cow and other books on ancient India. He said that whether or not Hindus ate beef could be an issue for academic, and not political, discussion.

Raghuvansh has stepped in after Lalu repeatedly tried to douse the controversy generated by his remarks on October 3 when he had said: "Those who go outside (the country) eat beef. Even Hindus eat beef. There is no difference between beef and goat meat."

The BJP and its allies grabbed the remark and strafed the RJD-JDU-Congress Grand Alliance. Modi waded into the controversy at a rally in Munger on Thursday where he condemned Lalu without uttering the "beef" word.

Lalu has continuously tried to clarify what he said, even going to the extent of saying he did not mean cow meat when he said beef. At a press conference on Thursday, Lalu asserted he worships cows, and cow-dung was like the sacred sandalwood paste for him.

On Friday, Sushil Modi questioned Nitish's silence on beef. "Nitish should say why he is silent on Lalu's beef remark and the 'beef party' thrown by J&K MLA Sheikh Abdul Rasheed. Does his secularism want to make beef our national diet," Sushil asked. He challenged Nitish to include cow slaughter ban in his manifesto and asked if he would support the Centre's beef ban.