RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav’s wholehearted support to the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 general election drew snide remarks on Monday from the ruling NDA in Bihar which wondered whether it was part of “strong arm tactics” against the Congress, its ally in the mahagathbandhan.

The NDA’s reaction came after Tejashwi Yadav greeted Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav for forging an alliance and dumping the Congress out of it. “This step of the BSP and the SP is going to be hailed in later stages,” Tejashwi Yadav said in Lucknow Monday.

A mortified Congress evaded a direct reply when it was asked about Yadav’s Lucknow visit, where he touched Mayawati’s feet and declared the RJD’s full support to the alliance at a press conference he jointly addressed with Akhilesh Yadav. BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand asserted it is actually a “posturing, a strong arm tactics by the RJD” which, he added, has an inflated sense of its importance and treats its alliance partners with contempt.

“Whatever Tejashwi Yadav’s Lucknow tour may mean for UP politics, in Bihar it is clearly indicative of the clash of egos that the Grand Alliance is witnessing. The clash of egos has come in the way of finalising a seat-sharing arrangement among its too many constituents. We are looking at a situation where they would not be able to reach any understanding till the date of voting and end up fighting each other,” he claimed.

Reacting to the developments, LJP leader Chirag Paswan said, “We wonder what type of Grand Alliance the opposition in Bihar had been talking about. In UP, the Congress, which was supposed to lead the so-called mahagathbandhan, has been left out.”

“Tejashwi Yadav and his party are in dire straits so, may be, he is on an expedition to make as many political friends as possible… The SP-BSP alliance may be a strong one, but there is nothing grand about it,” Paswan, son of LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan and chairman of the party’s parliamentary board, said.

Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra tried to side-step a question on the alliance, saying Tejashwi Yadav has family relations with Akhilesh Yadav. “May be he has gone there in a personal capacity, to celebrate Makar Sankranti.”