Union minister Chirag Paswan on Thursday asserted that all constituents of the NDA in Bihar will “together” contest the assembly elections, due in less than a year. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president was replying to queries from journalists on RJD president Lalu Prasad holding out an olive branch to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“There are some people who may be dreaming of causing a rift in the NDA. But, that is not going to happen. No NDA partner is going to align with the opposition coalition,” Paswan said. “I would also like to add that all five NDA partners in Bihar will fight the assembly elections together and win more than 225 seats (in the 243-member House),” the Hajipur MP said. The NDA in Bihar comprises the chief minister’s JD(U), BJP, LJP(RV), Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha.
Last month, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had, in an interview, cryptically said that the BJP’s parliamentary board would take a call on whether to go without a chief ministerial candidate in Bihar.
This was viewed, in political circles as well as a section of the media, as a signal from one of the most powerful leaders in the BJP to Kumar, who is in his 70s and has been chief minister for close to two decades. Lalu Prasad had recently told a media outlet that he had kept his “doors open” for the JD(U) supremo, who had snapped ties with the RJD last year, depriving his son Tejashwi Yadav of the deputy CM’s post. The remark was made light of by Yadav, who said his father had got rankled by “repeated” queries on the issue from the media and that he saw no point in realigning with his ex-boss who looked “dazed”.
Kumar had also come out with an indirect snub to the RJD supremo, terming as a “mistake” his two short-lived alliances with his arch rival.