Lalu offered help to pull down 'mahagathbandhan' govt: Bihar Dy CM

Patna: Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi alleged on Wednesday that RJD chief Lalu Prasad had met Union minister Arun Jaitley with the offer to help bring down the grand alliance government and install a saffron party dispensation if fodder scam cases against him were watered down.

Addressing a press conference, Modi claimed Finance Minister Jaitley, however, snubbed Prasad, who approached him through his emissary-- former Union minister Prem Chand Gupta-- and also met him in person.

Slamming Prasad for "always spewing venom against the BJP-RSS combine but never shying away from seeking our help whenever it serves his purpose", the BJP leader said Jaitley curtly told them that the CBI is an autonomous agency in whose functioning the government does not interfere.

Prasad's son and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Tejashwi Yadav rejected the allegation, and said it reflected the BJP's worry of an impending electoral defeat.

"His allegations that we sought help from the BJP at any point of time show his mental bankruptcy and worry of an impending defeat in the elections. The entire country knows that it was Lalu who had stopped (LK) Advanis Ayodhya Rath Yatra and has always valiantly fought their communal agenda," he tweeted.

After their dismal performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when a Narendra Modi wave swept the country, Nitish Kumar's JD(U), RJD and the Congress had formed a grand alliance and stopped the BJP's juggernaut in Bihar in the 2015 assembly polls.

The three-party alliance was in power till July 2017 when Kumar returned to the NDA following sharp differences with the RJD over allegations of corruption against Tejashwi, who was then the deputy chief minister.

Sushil Modi said the Jharkhand High Court had passed an order in 2014 granting Prasad some relief.