Patna: Eyeing ‘national party’ status, Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal (United) is planning to contest in 20 to 22 seats in upcoming Nagaland assembly election, which is scheduled to be held on February 27.
Senchumo Lotha, JD (U) national secretary and Nagaland state president said it is almost certain that the party is going to contest in nearly two-dozen seats. In 2018, the party had contested 13 seats.
Lotha JD (U)’s national leadership would soon take a final call on the number of seats to contest in Nagaland. Despite being a political party of the cow-belt, JD (U) has always been fighting elections in Northeast India.
In 2018, JD (U) had secured more than 4.6 percent votes, and won one assembly seat in Nagaland. But its lone MLA and minister of agriculture and cooperative G Kaito Aye later joined the ruling NDPP in 2019.
After respectable electoral result in 2019 in Arunachal Pradesh and in the 2022 Manipur election, Nitish Kumar is now working hard to win respectable number of seats in Nagaland.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had visited Dimapur on October 11 last year to celebrate the birth anniversary of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan. He is scheduled to visit Nagaland before the February 27 election.
If JD (U) manages to secure at least 8 percent of the polled valid votes in Nagaland, it can get the status of a ‘national party’.
The political party has already earned the status of ‘state party’ in Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.
