Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said Congress president Rahul Gandhi has squandered his goodwill by allying with RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

'Rahul had famously torn and thrown away a copy of the ordinance that intended to reverse a Supreme Court order on disqualification of convicted politicians. But later, he allied with the same type of people and yesterday he was singing paeans (to Lalu),' Kumar said, without naming the RJD chief.

'Here is a person who has been convicted in a corruption case by a court of law. And people have the temerity to say that he is being framed. Allying with such people has only destroyed the goodwill earned through gestures like tearing of the ordinance,' Nitish added.

Nitish also took potshots at Rahul for the promises he made at his Patna rally on Sunday.

He dismissed the Congress president's promise of ensuring a minimum income for the poor, saying 'elections are round the corner, people will come out with all types of promises'.

Miffed over Rahul’s allegation that Nitish had delivered empty promises to the people of Bihar like Narendra Modi did at the Centre, the chief minister said the Congress president would have done well to take note of the high growth rate of the state and the massive improvement in agricultural productivity.

About Rahul’s promise of granting central status to Patna University, Nitish said: 'I raised the demand before Prime Minister Modi and it was not accepted.”

He added that somebody must have “tipped off the Congress president” about it, which prompted him to make the promise.

'This has been a long-standing demand. I have been raising it since the days I was an MP. Why did the Congress-led UPA not do the needful when it was in power?' Nitish, himself a graduate of Patna University, asked.