LJP vice-president Ramchandra Paswan also said that the people of Bihar have decided to bring NDA alliance to power and therefore, naming the chief ministerial candidate in advance would not make much of a difference.
“We have many faces in our alliance who are much more capable than Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad. BJP is a big alliance partner and will take the decision.
“It would not be correct to say that we do not have a capable face to compete Nitish Kumar. More or less every party in Bihar have their own candidates. I would like to make it clear that naming candidate would not make much of a difference for us as people have already made their mood to bring NDA to power,” Ramchandra told PTI.
When asked whether LJP president and elder brother Ram Vilas Paswan is being considered as NDA’s CM candidate, he said he cannot say anything on it since they were part of an alliance and any decision on the matter will be taken only after discussion with all partners.
On the recent controversy over his remarks suggesting that Ram Vilas Paswan should be projected as NDA’s CM candidate, he claimed the media had distorted his statement.
“The BJP being the larger party would take the decision which would be acceptable to us,” he said.
Eyeing the Dalit votebank, Ramchandra said the NDA has strengthened after the inclusion of Jitan Ram Manjhi.
“Manjhi comes from the Mahadalit community which is also his base. NDA has surely strengthened after his inclusion,” Ramchandra, who also heads the Dalit Sena, said.
Accusing Kumar of “insulting” the Dalit community by removing Manjhi as Chief Minister of Bihar, Ramchandra said, “He would pay the price for this in the upcoming elections.”
Taking a jibe at the differences in RJD-JD(U) alliance over seat-sharing, he said they might have declared the candidate but they still had many differences.
“Even though they have declared CM candidate, RJD-JD(U) have a lot of differences on other matters including seat-sharing. This is not the case with NDA. A decision on seat-sharing will be taken after a meeting of all partners,” the LJP leader said.
Elections to the Bihar Assembly are likely to take place in September-October.
PTI