RJD should contest all 243 seats: Nitish

Unhappy over RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh's claim that his party will contest 143 seats in Bihar, a peeved Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday asked the RJD to contest all 243 seats in the state instead.

"Why just 143 seats? The RJD should contest from all 243 assembly seats," Nitish Kumar told the media in a sarcastic tone.

At a time when "technical problems" have come in the way of a merger of the Janata Parivar parties, and the RJD and the JD-U are likely to contest the Bihar polls as allies, Singh's statement may create more problems.

Singh had stated that the Rashtra Janata Dal was the bigger political force than Janata Dal-United and that it got more votes than the JD-U in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

JD-U leaders said what upset Nitish Kumar was Singh's comment that the RJD will negotiate over every seat with the JD-U because the party cannot ignore its leaders and workers for the sake of an alliance.

According to leaders of the RJD and the JD-U, each party will contest 100 seats and leave 43 seats for its allies the Congress and the Communist Party of India.