Bihar Assembly Election 2020: Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party to contest elections alone

Patna : Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) has decided to contest the upcoming Assembly Elections in Bihar alone; the party will not be joining hands with Nitish Kumar's JDU.

LJP-BJP collaboration will continue and they will field candidates against Nitish Kumar's JDU, the party announced on Sunday. "Due to the ideological differences at the state-level with the JDU, the LJP has decided to fight the assembly elections separately," LJP's Abdul Khaliq said in a statement, stressing on the party's motto - 'Bihar first-Bihari first'.

"There can be a difference of ideologies on many seats with the JDU... voters should be able to decide who they want as their candidate. The LJP wants to implement the Bihar vision document and the two parties have not been able to reach a consensus on it," the official statement by the party underlined. 

Suggesting that ties with the BJP remain intact even as it parts ways with Nitish Kumar's JDU, the party stressed: "However, we have a strong alliance with the BJP and even in Bihar, we want to continue this collaboration. There is no sourness in our relations.  After the state elections, all the candidates who win will form a BJP-LJP government and follow the path of progress shown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

The announcement came after a meeting was held in Delhi. The meeting was attended by Veena Devi, Chandan Singh, Surajbhan Singh, Raju Tiwari, Prince Raj, Kali Pandey, Abdul Khalid and other prominent leaders.

The meeting was scheduled to happen on Saturday but it was later postponed after Chirag Paswan's father – Ram Vilas Paswan – was hospitalized in Delhi. He underwent heart surgery on Saturday night.

On Saturday, Chirag Paswan "sought people's blessings" for his party's "Bihar first Bihari first" vision document.