A controversy erupted on Friday over the setting ablaze of a bus carrying senior NDA leaders detained during the Bihar bandh.

The NDA has accused the ruling RJD of plotting to kill its leaders while RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav accused the alliance of having incited its workers to set ablaze the vehicle in a bid to replicate Godhra in their 'mad pursuit of power'.

"The RJD conspired to kill us. The bus carrying me and other senior NDA leaders was first stoned and then set afire near the planetarium on Bailey Road," former Union minister Dr C P Thakur (BJP) and Samata Party national spokesman Shambhu Srivastava told reporters in Patna.

Thakur said several people were injured in the commotion inside the bus when it was set ablaze. He and other occupants managed to escape by breaking the window-panes of the bus.

"I thought I would be suffocated to death, but god saved me," Thakur said.

Srivastava and Thakur said dharnas would be organised at all district headquarters in the state and in front of Jayprakash Narayan's statue in Patna to protest against the police repression during the bandh.

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