Nobody can ignore JD (U): Nitish Kumar

With the 2019 general elections in the pipeline, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) Chief Nitish Kumar said nobody can ignore the JD (U).

Nitish, who attended the JD (U) legislative meeting earlier in the day, said he is still awaiting a proposal from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with regards to the share of assembly seats.

"No proposal has come from the BJP yet. Once we get a proposal, we will decide what to do next. But one thing very clear, nobody can ignore JDU because JDU is a strong force in Bihar. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, JD (U) won only two seats out of 40, but bagged a 17 percent vote share," he added.

Clarifying his decision to quit the alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Nitish said that he would not compromise on corruption.

"I asked Lalu Prasad and his son to reveal the source of such huge money in public because I cannot compromise on corruption," he said.

Earlier, addressing the issue of the grand-alliance ahead of the 2019 general elections, the party's general secretary KC Tyagi sought clarity from the Congress party with regards to their stand on the RJD.

"Until and unless Congress clears its stand on a corrupt party like RJD, we don't know how to communicate with them any further," he added.

In the recent times, rifts have emerged between the JD (U) and BJP, largely due to the proposed seat share in the state assembly.

In the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections, JD (U) had won 71 of the 243 seats, while the BJP emerged victorious in 53 seats.

The JD (U) wants the results of the Assembly election, where it had fared much better than the BJP, to be a key factor while deciding how many seats each of the four National Democratic Alliance (NDA) parties in the state will get to contest in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.