Bitter foes for almost two decades, former Bihar chief ministers Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad on Monday hugged each other as they launched a joint campaign in support of their alliance candidates for the August 21 Assembly by-polls, and took on ruling BJP at the Centre.

Kumar, who had parted ways with Lalu in 1994 and succeeded in dethroning him in Bihar in 2005 in alliance with BJP.

He said his alliance with Lalu, whose party RJD also fared poorly in polls but fetched more votes than JD(U), was the need of the hour as the country was in “danger”.

Hitting out at BJP, Kumar said it is for the first time that those leaders are in power who did not spend a single day in jail during freedom struggle.

“Our forefathers sacrificed their lives. We all know the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Lohia, Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar… Now those people are in the seat of power who did not spend a day behind bars,” he said, in an apparent attack on the BJP’s ideological mentor RSS, which mostly kept away from political movements during the freedom struggle.