It’s for BJP to decide on CM candidate: Paswan

LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan.

With RJD chief Lalu Prasad daring the BJP to declare its chief ministerial candidate before the Assembly polls, Ram Vilas Paswan, leader of the Lok Janshakti Party that is part of the NDA, said on Thursday that it was for the BJP to take a decision.

“Who is Mr. Lalu Prasad to ask the NDA to name its chief ministerial candidate? It is for the BJP to decide, and the LJP will support the BJP’s decision,” Mr. Paswan, a Union Minister, told reporters here.

However, he said, anyone could be the NDA’s chief ministerial candidate, but it was for the BJP, at the head of the alliance, to take the decision. “Mr. Lalu Prasad’s comment does not carry any weight for the NDA, and he should take care of his alliance which is destined to fall apart sooner or later,” Mr. Paswan said. “They can never meet… Their alliance is like the coming together of

neem and

karela [bitter gourd]... Eventually, they will backstab each other.”

Asked about the move of the former Chief Minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi, to strike an alliance with the BJP, Mr. Paswan said his party would not have any problem “if Mr. Manjhi becomes part of the NDA.”

On Thursday, Mr. Manjhi met BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi and vowed to defeat the alliance of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad in Bihar. “Our party’s core committee is meeting on June 15 to take a decision whether to go with a pre-poll alliance with the BJP or a post-poll alliance; but the main issue is to defeat the Nitish-Lalu combination,” he had told journalists after the meeting.

However, BJP sources told

The Hindu that the party offered Mr. Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha 25-30 seats.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi wondered why Mr. Nitish Kumar was yet to “thank” Mr. Lalu Prasad even four days after he had agreed to name him the chief ministerial candidate of the secular alliance. He also wanted to know why Mr. Nitish Kumar had not put the photos of Mr. Lalu Prasad along with his on publicity posters. “First, Mr. Nitish Kumar should put up the photos of Lalu Prasad and Congress president Sonia Gandhi along with his on posters and then plunge into the campaign,” said Mr. Modi, one of the BJP frontrunners for Chief Minister.