Bihar: RJD, LJP and HAM(S) to contest Delhi election

PATNA: RJD, LJP and HAM (S) have decided to contest the Delhi assembly elections scheduled for February 8. BJP ally LJP announced on Tuesday that it will contest all the 70 Delhi seats and released its first list of 15 candidates.
RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha also said his party will field candidates in alliance with Congress but only if they get respectable number of seats.“Otherwise, we will go solo,” he said. Jha told TOI on Tuesday that they have demanded seven seats from Congress. “Talks are going on in this regard. It was our party only which spoke clearly against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the Rajya Sabha as these issues are not only against the minority community, but also against the poor who look to us,” said Jha.
LJP’s Delhi incharge Kali Pandey told reporters on Tuesday that the party released its first list of 15 candidates for Delhi polls. “Our alliance with BJP is limited to Bihar only and it was for the BJP to decide on a tie-up in Delhi elections.
“It is for the bigger ally in a coalition to take a call about any tie-up ahead of the polls. We have seen what happened in the recently held Jharkhand assembly elections,” he told reporters, referring to the BJP's loss in it.
JD (U), another BJP’s ally, has also decided to field its candidate in Delhi elections, like it did in Jharkhand. However, both JD(U) as well as LJP could not win even a single seat in Jharkhand elections.
Meanwhile, former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM(S) has also decided to contest 15 seats in Delhi, including Purani Dilli (Old Delhi) and Patparganj, against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and deputy CM Manish Sisodia, respectively.
HAM(S) spokesperson Danish Rizwan told TOI that Aditi Singh from Purani Dilli and Shatrughan Kumar alias Munna Singh from Patparganj will be the party candidates. “They will file their nomination papers on January 16. We also held a meeting in Patparganj on Tuesday in the presence of Manjhi ji,” he said and added: “Our candidates on 15 seats have already started campaign. We are fighting this election on local issues.”