PATNA: LJP (Lok Janshakti Party) Chief Chirag Paswan toughening his stand on seat-sharing with the NDA asked his party leaders to prepare for a new challenge in the upcoming elections, and said that it will not compromise under any circumstance.
Speaking to the leaders of his party on Wednesday, Chirag Paswan said, “The party is our mother. No compromise will be made with the interest of party under any circumstance.”
Quoting his father Ram Vilas Paswan, Chirag said "the nation comes first to the LJP, then the party and then the individual interest of any one else."
In Bihar, LJP has shaken the internal unity of NDA having declared that if its demand for 42 seats would not be met, LJP will be have no option but to go alone and field its candidates on the 143 seats in the upcoming assembly elections.
Paswan had also made it clear that his party is in alliance with BJP in Bihar and not in alliance with JD-U and added that they may field candidates against the JD-U on the 143 seats as well.
On Wednesday, indirectly taking a jibe at the Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar, Paswan adding that nobody should think of ending the party's political existence, said, "It is impossible to cut short the party's stature."
Recently, national general secretary of JD-U KC Tyagi had vehemently reacted against the LJP saying that JD-U has never been in alliance with LJP and fought any elections in past.
The rift between JD-U and LJP widened when JD-U MP and closest to Nitish Kumar, Lallan Singh had termed Chirag Paswan as ‘Kalidas’, who cuts the off the shoot of a tree on which it sits.
Sources said that LJP has taken the seat-sharing a matter of party’s prestige because of having a major vote bank of Dalits at around 15 per cent, minorities, and a major chunk of the upper caste vote banks in Bihar.
In the last LS elections, LJP had won all the six seats on which it had contested in while JD-U had lost one out of 17 seats.