Patna:
Senior Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader and MP Chirag Paswan on Friday expressed happiness over party’s victory in Samastipur Lok Sabha seat, but voiced concern over the NDA’s bad performance in the assembly by- elections in Bihar.
Asserting that the state by-poll outcome did not match their expectations, the LJP Parliamentary Board chief said the reasons for this would be reviewed at a meeting of the ruling coalition.
He exuded confidence that the NDA will bounce back in the 2020 assembly polls in Bihar.
LJP is a partner of the BJP and JD(U) in the NDA in Bihar.
“There are certainly some concern for the NDA as we could not perform as per our expectation. We (NDA leaders) will have a review meeting as why results are not as per our hope and the reasons behind it.
“We will find out our mistakes and reasons for by-poll results and fight 2020 Bihar assembly polls with our full strength to register a historic victory under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,” Paswan told reporters here.
He claimed the NDA would win 225 assembly seats in the 243-member Bihar house after strenthening his party’s organisational struture.
The NDA won th Samastipur reserved Lok Sabha seat comfortably, but could manage to register victory just on one out of the five assembly seats in the assembly by- election, results of which were declared on Thursday.
“It will not be correct to make any kind of statement in a haste when the results are declared barely 24 hours ago,” the LJP leader said adding the NDA leaders would review the outcome.
Stating that opposition parties should not be over enthusiastic on winning just two seats, Paswan said that there has been instances where NDA has not fared well in bypolls, like one in Gorakhpur where NDA lost had Lok Sabha bypoll, but did well in the general election.
RJD, heading the five-parties Grand Alliance, bagged two of the five assembly seats in the Bihar by-election.
Asked whether people have rejected CM Nitish Kumar’s face in the bypolls, he said it would not be correct to say so.
“It would not be correct to say that people have rejected CM’s face as there are several other reasons, including local factors that play an important role in election results…
rather he (Nitish) has led the alliance to victory in several elections,” he added.
In reply to a query that union minister Giriraj Singh has termed as dangerous the victory of Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM in the by-poll in Kishanganj assembly segment, Paswan said that would not be proper to raise fingers on people’s decision because they (AIMIM) have also got peoples support.
He, however, said he does not subscribe to AIMIM’s ideology.
In reply to a query, he said the LJP would like to contest the upcoming assembly election in Jharkhand under the banner of NDA, a decision which the party has conveyed to the top coalition leaders.
