Bihar assembly witnessed a bitter exchange between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his former deputy-turned-rival Tejashwi Yadav today. When Mr Kumar rose to speak in the assembly about the development work done by the NDA government, Mr Yadav interrupted his speech.

“What was there in Bihar earlier? It was I who made your (Tejashwi Yadav) father what he became. Even the people from your caste were asking me why I was doing this, but I still supported him,” the Chief Minister hit back.

Amid a huge uproar by the Opposition, Mr Kumar continued, “You don’t know anything. When Lalu Yadav was opposing the separation of Extremely Backward Classes and Backward Classes in Bihar. I said it was wrong, and I opposed him at that time.

Earlier in the assembly, Tejashwi Yadav compared the previous government in Bihar, led by his father and former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad and slammed the regime led by his former ally Nitish Kumar.

The face-off came a day after the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader sneered at the budget presented by the Nitish Kumar government. Terming the budget “inflated” and drafted with “ink dipped in lies”, he said, “It is strange that despite no revenue generation, the size of the budget keeps increasing. The figure of Rs 3.71 lakh-crore is highly inflated. The budget papers seem to have been written with ink dipped in lies. They could have made it Rs 5 lakh-crore”.