With both the BJP and the JD(U) seriously watching their growing frictions that arose from the clash of images between Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi over secularism in poll-bound Bihar, an uneasy calm prevailed at the Patna state headquarters of both the parties on Monday.

By returning the Kosi flood relief money of Rs 5 crore to Gujarat, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) may have given the RJD-LJP, the state’s main Opposition combine, a bigger handle than

The Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP government in Bihar on Saturday returned to Gujarat’s BJP government the Rs 5 crores that the latter had given to Bihar as aid during the Kosi floods of 2008, further straining JD(U)-BJP ties ahead of impending Assembly polls in Mr Kumar’s state.

Bihar chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar’s ingenious decision to spruce up his secular image in poll-bound Bihar by returning the Rs 5-crore Kosi flood aid money back to the Gujarat government on Saturday drew flak from all political parties barring the JD(U) and the intelligentsia.

The opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Friday expelled two legislators for six years for voting for the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) during the Rajya Sabha elections on Thursday in Bihar.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife and Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Rabri Devi and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan were on Thursday summoned by a court in Muzaffarpur that is hearing a case charging the trio with the causing damages to public property during an RJD-LJP rally in January.

The suspense over possibilities of the BJP’s Hindutva icon and Gujarat chief minister, Mr Narendra Modi, coming to campaign for Bihar’s Assembly polls is getting thicker even as the strained relations between the JD(U) and the BJP, which form Bihar’s ruling coalition, still hang in balance.

With the Rajya Sabha polls for Bihar’s five vacant seats set to be held on Thursday with six candidates in the fray, there is anxiety among both the parties and the candidates amid an atmosphere of possible horse trading. Money could play a decisive role despite the major parties either having issued whips or deciding to stay out.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren was on Tuesday acquitted in a 36-year-old double murder case by a fast-track trial court where he was facing trial as the sole accused. Lack of enough evidence against him led to Mr Soren’s acquittal, making it the third murder case from which he emerged unscathed.

Seeking to make the Bahujan Samaj Party’s presence strongly felt in Bihar’s caste-driven politics and eyeing the forthcoming Assembly polls, Uttar Pradesh chief minister and BSP supremo Mayawati on Tuesday asked her party’s cadres to follow its UP socio-political formula to rise to power in the state ruled by the Nitish Kumar-led shaky NDA.