LJP's parliamentary board to get list of 143 Bihar candidates; JD-U MP says parties free to decide their affairs

Hours after the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) said its Bihar unit will give a list of 143 party candidates for the assembly polls to the party's Parliamentary Board, Janata Dal-United leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh said every party has the right to decide its party affairs.

"Every party is independent to take a decision. There is nothing special in it. We do not know what they are doing. But I want to say every party has the right to decide its party affairs," Singh told reporters.

The JD-U leader did not comment about his earlier remarks in which he had compared Chirag Paswan's salvos at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to Kalidas (before he became a poet) cutting the branch of a tree on which he was sitting.

"Let past remain the past. There is no need to talk about it now," Rajiv Ranjan Singh said.

Both LJP and JD-U are part of the ruling NDA in Bihar which also includes the BJP.

Earlier in the day, LJP spokesperson Sanjay Kumar Singh had objected to remarks of Rajiv Ranjan Singh.

"Our party chief was compared to 'scatterbrained Kalidas' when he talked about the development of Bihar," he said.

LJP held a meeting of its Bihar parliamentary board at the residence of Chirag Paswan on Monday.

"In the meeting, it was decided that a list of 143 candidates has to be sent to the parliamentary board soon. It was also decided the decisions concerning what happens in the alliance in Bihar will be taken by party chief Chirag Paswan," Raju Tiwari, president, LJP Parliamentary Board Bihar said in a release.

Bihar has 243 assembly constituencies and elections in the state are due in October-November as the tenure of the current assembly will end on November 29.

The Election Commission has not yet taken a final call on poll dates in Bihar due to the coronavirus pandemic.

( With inputs from ANI )