The BJP and the JD(U) in Bihar put up a united show on Monday to shut down the state in a 12-hour bandh against price rise, but the simmering tensions between the two allies over Narendra Modi spilled out onto the streets during the shutdown and resulted in group clashes followed by hot exchanges between leaders.

The BJP on Sunday launched a comprehensive attack on the Congress for letting the crisis of price rise worsen and ridiculed the UPA government for its failure to ascertain the exact number of people l

The JD(U) on Saturday stole a march on the Congress by winning over Dr Arun Kumar, an influential Bhumihar leader and former JD(U) MP from Jehanabad, who had quit the party and joined the Congress on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls.

Vying for Bihar’s Muslim votes and sensing the challenge thrown up by the Congress, chief minister Nitish Kumar has presented another picture of Centre-state confrontation over the Congress-led UPA government’s reported rejection of the Bihar government’s proposals for development of madrasas in six Muslim-dominated districts.

The hike in fuel prices has galvanised all non-Congress political parties in Bihar against the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre and prompted them to plan statewide shutdowns in the next few days with an obvious eye on the state’s Assembly polls due in November.

CRPF sub-inspector Mithilesh Prasad Singh, one of the 27 CRPF personnel killed in the Maoist attack in Chhatisgarh’s Naryanpur on Tuesday, was to arrive at his ancestral village Matihan in Bihar’s Saran district in 20 days to conduct his daughter’s wedding. His village was seized with grief and hopelessness on Thursday when his body arrived there.

Mr Narendra Modi, whose campaign visits to Bihar now seem more likely despite murmurs of protest from the JD(U), has already smoothed his path into the state’s psyche and enthused the BJP’s rank and file. For many in Bihar, the Gujarat chief minister may have lost much of the stigma of communalism surrounding him.

Spending a lifetime in active politics can be such a phenomenon for some politicians that even their deaths cannot remain untouched by a bit of politicking. The recent deaths of two top Bihar leaders perhaps bear ample testimony to the state’s acrimonious political landscape.

Former Union minister Mohammad Taslimuddin, who was for long the RJD’s prominent Muslim face in Bihar, is all set to join the state’s ruling JD(U) after a spell of political wilderness since his loss in the Lok Sabha polls to the Congress in Muslim-dominated Kishanganj.

Despite Mr Narendra Modi continuing to be the sore point between the BJP and the JD(U), the BJP appears keen on getting its Hindutva icon to campaign for the party in Bihar ahead of the Assembly polls. The BJP’s ongoing efforts to make peace with the JD(U) have not made the national party drop its plans for Mr Modi’s campaign in Bihar.