Lok Janshakti Party to contest Bihar assembly polls alone

The Lok Janshakti Party has taken a call to contest the upcoming three-phase assembly polls in Bihar on its own. The decision to break away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was taken at the Parliamentary Board meeting of the party on Sunday.

The party has earlier hinted at following the Manipur model in Bihar, where the party contested the 2017 assembly election alone and later its only MLA had joined the BJP government. In Manipur, the LJP had announced candidates for 11 constituencies, but won a single seat. Earlier, in 2014, during the assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir and the 2019 assembly polls in Jharkhand the party had contested alone, despite being part of the NDA at the Centre.

People aware of the details said, the party will opt to have a friendly contest against the NDA partners, though the LJP leadership had clarified earlier that they will put up contestants against the JD(U) and not the BJP.

The party has been threatening to break away from the NDA if its demand for being allocated 42 seats to contest from is not met. The LJP leadership had announced last month that the party will contest 143 of the 243 seats, if it fails to reach an agreement with the BJP on seat sharing.

While the LJP has stressed that it does not have any differences with the BJP; it has trained its guns at the JD (U), also an NDA partner. LJP president Chirag Paswan has been critical of Bihar chief minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, accusing him of failing to meet poll promises of ushering in development in Bihar.

To reiterate that the LJP is not breaking ties with the BJP, the parliamentary board adopted a resolution that called for all LJP legislators to strengthen PM Modi.

The BJP’s parliamentary board and central election committee will also meet on Sunday to announce the contours of seat sharing with the JD(U).