Patna: Amid speculations of a possible rift between Janata Dal United (JDU) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday made it clear that his party will contest 2020 state assembly elections together with saffron party, as an ally of NDA. Kumar also claimed that the NDA will not just win the Assemble Elections but will also get more than 206 seats which it bagged in 2010.

"We will contest next year's state assembly polls as an ally of NDA and we will win more than 200 of 243 assembly seats. In the 2010 assembly polls NDA won 206 seats, next time we will cross this figure", Nitish Kumar said in a rejoinder to opposition leaders statements that the JDU and the BJP will not contest the polls together, while addressing party leaders and workers here.

Nitish Kumar said the alliance (with the NDA) is 25 years old and they will continue to work together. Bihar CM further added that the opposition leaders have been spreading rumours about the NDA and targeting him for publicity purposes only.

Nitish Kumar government in Bihar has been under pressure since past few weeks as two BJP leaders in the state and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan hinting at a change. Kumar, who is often dubbed as 'Shushan Babu (Mr. Good Governance), led the alliance to victory in as many as 39 out of 40 seats in April-May Lok Sabha election after snapping ties with Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

For the 2015 elections, JDU broke ties with BJP and joined forces with RJD and market a successful return to the CM office. However, uncertainty still remains who will lead the BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar in next year's Assembly elections. It is also being expected that the BJP is looking to push one of its candidates as the CM face for the next Bihar elections, while JDU remains firm that it will go ahead with Kumar as its first choice.

Earlier, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav has claimed that the BJP has decided it will not project Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial candidate in the Bihar Assembly elections 2020. Refuting such these claims, Kumar reiterated that there is no discord in BJP-JDU alliance and said that those who are trying to create problems will see their fate after elections.