Congress led JD(U) up the garden path on special status: Jaitley

His statement came a day after Kumar staged a day-long protest in Patna against the Centre's failure to grant special category status to Bihar.

Hinting that the promise had prompted Kumar to part ways with BJP, Jaitley said, “Coincidentally the signalling towards this special category status was also at the same time when the JD(U)-BJP split took place.”

Once the JD(U) was on its own, the special category status did not come, the BJP leader said.

Taking a swipe, he said, “in the ‘swayamvar' (process of choosing a life partner from among many) between Lalu Prasad-led RJD and JD(U), the Congress party preferred its old ally (RJD).”

Citing reports that Congress and JD(U) may consider an alliance after the talks between Congress and RJD have somewhat stalemated, Jaitley said Congress has already double-crossed JD(U) on special category status.