Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) on Tuesday released its first list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections and hinted at the possibility of contesting around a dozen seats without an alliance.
Top JDU leaders told The Telegraph that the party had first tried to have a seat-sharing deal as a part of the Opposition INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), but was forced to go solo after the efforts did not succeed.
The list released by JDU MLC and general secretary Afaque Ahmad Khan has candidates for five Assembly constituencies — Pichhor, Rajnagar, Vijayraghav Garh, Thandhla, and Petlawad. “We will soon release a second list for seven to eight more seats," Khan told this newspaper.
“A seat-sharing deal within the INDIA bloc in Madhya Pradesh would have been good. But it did not happen,” he added.
Khan said the JDU had been active in Madhya Pradesh for decades. “Our leaders and workers insisted that we contest the coming Assembly elections. We accepted their request,” he added.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had expressed disappointment over the INDIA partners' failure to work out a seat-sharing pact in Madhya Pradesh.
The JDU had contested the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls in 2003, 2008 and 2013. It did not contest in 2018. The party had bagged one seat each in the 2003 and the 2008 Assembly polls.
Senior JDU leaders are miffed because Nitish has not been given any responsibility in the INDIA grouping despite the fact that he did the groundwork to bring its members to a single platform to take on the BJP in the 2024 general election.
