New Delhi: Downplaying the rebellion and defiance by senior party leaders Shivanand Tiwari, Sabir Ali and Nand Kishore Singh who have refused to contest Lok Sabha elections as their Rajya Sabha term was coming to an end; Bihar Janata Dal United President Bashistha Narayan Singh denied that the party was planning to act against them.
Singh said Shivanand Tiwari, Sabir Ali and Nand Kishore Singh are very senior leaders, and they had been given the option of contesting Lok Sabha elections and it is up to them to take a call. "It is their decision and the party won't act against them if they don't want to contest. If they don't contest then JDU will put up other candidates," Singh told IBNLive.com on Thursday. While Shivanand Tiwari was given Buxar, Sabir Ali and NK Singh were directed to contest from Sheohar and Banka respectively.
The Bihar JDU chief sounded confident that his party would win big in Bihar once again despite breaking its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. "JDU will fight on all 40 seats. We are in talks with the Left parties. The talks are still in a preliminary stage and so far there have been no talks on the number of seats. The elections are still a couple of months away and there is still time to finalise all the loose ends," he said.
Targeting the Congress just like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on communal riots, Singh said that both in 1984 and 1989, it was the Congress that was in power when the anti-Sikh riots and Bhagalpur communal carnage took place. "There was no follow-up action in Bhagalpur for many years. The victims got justice only after Nitish Kumar came to power," he said.
Dismissing the proposed alliance between Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal, Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Congress as a serious player in Bihar politics, Singh said that these three parties have been together in the past and there was nothing new if they wanted to once again contest the Lok Sabha elections together.
Coaming that Bihar was back on the development track under Nitish Kumar, the JDU chief said that the BJP would not be able to match the Chief Minister's achievements in the state.
"The main points that JDU will highlight and seek votes on will be Bihar's development, special status for the state, communal harmony, improvement in law and order," he added.
The JDU-BJP combine had swept the last Lok Sabha elections winning 32 seats in the state. While the JDU bagged 20, BJP was victorious in 12 constituencies. RJD won four seats, Congress two and two seats went to independent candidates.
But with JDU breaking its 17-year-old alliance with the BJP in June 2013, the going is predicted to be tough for Nitish Kumar.
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