Former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Tuesday accused Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav of attempting to poach MLAs of the National Democratic Alliance by “promising ministerial berths”. In a tweet, Modi said that he asked Yadav to refrain from “these dirty tricks” and shared a mobile number that he claimed the jailed politician was using.

The BJP leader also tweeted an audio clip, where a voice purportedly of Yadav, can be heard asking another person to side with the Opposition during the election for the post of the Speaker in the Bihar Assembly, which was held on Wednesday.

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In the clip, which has not been verified independently, a person claiming to be Yadav congratulates one “Paswan ji” for becoming an MLA. He then goes on to say: “Support us during the Speaker’s election tomorrow and we will give you a minister’s post. We will vote out the government tomorrow.”

The other person can then be heard speaking about his loyalty to his party, to which the voice claiming to be Yadav asks him to remain “absent” during the voting.

Meanwhile, BJP’s Vijay Kumar Sinha was on Wednesday elected as Speaker of the Bihar Assembly, getting 126 votes, as against 114 votes in favour of RJD’s Awadh Bihari Chaudhary who was fielded by the Opposition.

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The Assembly’s proceedings were disrupted as the Opposition protested presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the floor of the House, citing that he was a member of the Legislative Council. They also demanded voting by secret ballot. However, pro-tem Speaker Jitan Ram Manjhi dismissed both the demands.

The RJD also tweeted against the presence of two other leaders, Mukesh Sahani of the Vikashheel Insaan Party and Ashok Choudhary of Janata Dal (United) in the Assembly during voting, as they are not members of either Houses.

Following Sinha’s election, Modi tweeted congratulating him and said that Yadav’s “conspiracy” was defeated.