Janata Dal (United) Vice President Prashant Kishor on Saturday dared Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to reveal to the media what transpired during their talks.

Kishor’s statement comes a day after former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi claimed Kishor had met Yadav with a proposal to merge the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (United) and that the new entity thus formed declare its “prime ministerial candidate” ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, PTI reported.

“Those convicted or facing charges of abuse of public office and misappropriation of funds are claiming to be the custodians of truth,” Kishor tweeted on Saturday. “Whenever Lalu Prasad Yadav ji want[s], he should sit with me before the media as it would let everybody know what we spoke about who gave an offer to whom.”

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Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav questioned Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s silence on the alleged meeting between Kishor and his father, Lalu Prasad Yadav, reported News18. “He [Kumar] should come out and speak,” Tejashwi Yadav said. “Prashant Kishor has been meeting us, it is written in Lalu’s book also. Prashant should first take permission from Nitish and then tweet.”

In his book, Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey, Lalu Prasad Yadav wrote that Kishor seemed to indicate that the Janata Dal (United) would pull out of the alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and rejoin the mahagathbandhan. “Though I was not bitter with Nitish, I had lost trust in him completely,” Yadav wrote in the book. “Moreover, I was not sure how the people who had voted for the Grand Alliance in 2015 and the other parties that had united against the BJP all over the country, would react if I accepted Kishor’s offer.”

Kishor had rubbished Yadav’s claim and called it bogus. “Yes, we did meet many times before I joined JD(U), but if I were to tell what all was discussed then he would be quite embarrassed,” Kishor had said. Kishor had worked as a political strategist for Kumar and Lalu Yadav during the 2015 Assembly elections.

In 2017, Nitish Kumar had walked out of the Grand Alliance, which was formed by his party with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. He re-joined the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP.