The RJD on Wednesday decided to step up their defence of the party's first family by taking the attack to the Nitish Kumar camp, asking whether those attacking deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav were "sons of Raja Harishchandra".

The RJD's aggressive posture comes a day after the Janata Dal United asked Tejashwi to come clean on the CBI case filed against him. Senior leaders and ministers took the lead in defending the deputy chief minister and RJD boss Lalu Prasad. "There is no question of Tejashwi Yadav resigning. All the three leaders of the alliance should sit together and decide if the Grand Alliance will remain or not," said senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.

The words of other Lalu supporters were harsher - they are miffed that the JDU hasn't condemned the CBI action. "Are the persons sitting besides Nitish sons of Raja Harishchandra?" taunted former MP Shivanand Tiwari.

RJD MP Mohammed Taslimuddin remarked from Kishanganj that Nitish was not fit to be a mukhiya but was dreaming to be the Prime Minister - repeating a statement for which he was issued a showcause notice last year. The aging MP went a step further this time. "Nitish has been a promoter of the RSS right from his student days. If the Grand Alliance breaks and elections are held, the RJD will emerge the winner," said Taslimuddin.

There are talks of RJD ministers submitting their resignation en masse if Nitish insists on Tejashwi's resignation or drops him from the cabinet - the chief minister is understood to have told his party leaders on Tuesday that Tejashwi would have to quit on his own, but stopped short of setting a deadline. "It is a proposal that has been discussed but has not been cleared yet," said an RJD minister.

Beneath the bravado though, RJD leaders admitted in private they are aware of the limited options available to the party which is facing its gravest political crisis yet.

"We are a party where our leader is facing speedy trial in the fodder scam cases. Tejashwi was being nurtured as the son who would fill the shoes of his father. Still, Tejashwi is nowhere near the stature of Lalu and does not command the absolute loyalty of party workers and leaders. His resignation will be a severe blow to Lalu's dream of making him the inheritor of his political legacy. Like all one-man parties there is no second-line leadership. We face the threat of a drift like the AIADMK when our main leader is not among us," conceded a senior leader.

The party is the largest in the alliance with 80 MLAs. But it is still not sure of contesting the polls on its own. The Muslim-Yadav combination is a substantial vote chunk but not a winning one. Leaders recall that in the 2010 Assembly polls it was reduced to just 22 seats.

"Presently the only thing that is going in our favour is our belief that Nitish will think twice before joining hands with the BJP. Unlike the previous BJP, there is Narendra Modi," said another RJD mini ster ridiculing Nitish's stand on corruption. "When Nitish joined hands with us, Lalu was convicted in a fodder scam case," he remarked.