State president of Janata Dal (United) Bashistha Narain Singh on Monday said that National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners have decided to jointly declare the names of all 40 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls after Holi.

The announcement came after Lok Janshakti Party’s parliamentary board chairman Chirag Paswan said “the board, which met in Delhi today, finalised the names of candidates for the six parliamentary seats. But we have decided to defer the announcement as the nation is mourning the demise of former defence minister Manohar Parrikar.”

Of the three NDA partners, LJP is in a comfortable position, vis-à-vis JD (U) and BJP, on the candidate selection front as it has to deal with only six parliamentary seats—Hajipur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Jamui, Khagaria and Nawada. The first five seats are held by LJP parliamentarians.

In the process of finalising the 17-17-6 seat share deal for JD (U), BJP and LJP respectively, the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party had to part with Munger (its sitting seat) for the JD (U) and get compensated with BJP ‘s sitting Nawada seat held by union minister Giriraj Singh.

“The announcement of the names would be made in the next two days. No one should be surprised if we win all the 40 seats. I am confident that in any case we will bag at least 36-37 seats for sure,” he said.

The NDA has been trying to put a united face in the backdrop of the bickering in the Grand Alliance that is still unable to resolve the tricky seat sharing deal. The NDA leaders had announced the respective seats going to each partner at a joint press meet held at JD (U) headquarters in the state capital on Sunday.

State president of JD (U) dropped ample hints that the NDA would follow the same convention for announcing the names of 40 candidates. “The names of NDA nominees will be announced aftter Holi in the state capital,” he said, after his meeting with chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Despite the smooth seat distribution, Giriraj Singh has been left sulking as his Nawada seat has gone to LJP fold. Another BJP MP from Jhanjharpur Birendra Chaudhary, whose seat has gone to JD (U), went a step ahead to call on state JD (U) chief on Monday.

While Chaudhary did not respond to media queries, Bashistha Narain Singh tried to play down the incident saying “BJP MP is an old friend and he had come to meet me in his personal capacity.”

First Published: Mar 19, 2019 13:25 IST