The Janata Dal (United) on Monday said that of all parties in the National Democratic Alliance, the JD(U) would contest the highest number of seats in Bihar in the 2019 General Elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party was free to contest the elections alone if it does not need an ally, it added.

“BJP knows without Nitish ji, it will not be able to win in Bihar,” The Times of India quoted the party’s General Secretary Sanjay Singh as saying. “If it does not want any ally, BJP can field its candidates on all 40 Lok Sabha seats.”

Singh claimed that the party was confident of going it alone in the elections as it has a strong presence in every district of the state, ANI reported. He also asked state BJP leaders not to make unnecessary statements on the matter of seat-sharing.

Earlier this month, JD(U) National General Secretary Shyam Rajak said the party expected that the BJP would allow it to contest 25 of the 40 seats in the state. BJP General Secretary Rajendra Singh, however, recently claimed that the party would contest all the 22 seats it had won in the 2014 General Elections. The JD(U) won only two seats in the last general elections, but wants seats to be shared on the basis of the results of the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls, in which it won 71 seats compared to BJP’s 53.

While the JD(U) has announced that Nitish Kumar will be the alliance’s face during election campaign in Bihar, the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party – which is also a part of the coalition in Bihar – has said that it cannot accept Kumar as the alliance’s leader.