UP Polls: Nitish Kumars' JD(U) to fight independently after no response from BJP on alliance

New Delhi: The JD(U) will fight the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on its own after the BJP, its ally in Bihar, did not reciprocate its offer of a tie-up, party spokesperson KC Tyagi said on Sunday, asserting it will contest on the plank of "Bihar model" of empowerment of the deprived sections of society.

Tyagi said JD(U) leader and Union minister R C P Singh, who was deputed by the party to hold alliance talks with the BJP, reached out to senior BJP leaders Amit Shah and Dharmendra Pradhan besides its president J P Nadda but in vain.

The JD(U) will hold a meeting in Lucknow on January 18 to decide on the number of seats it will contest, Tyagi said.

The party will run its campaign in the state around its Bihar model, he said, claiming that no government has done as much work for women and poor and backward sections of society as carried out by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led dispensation.

JD(U) leader Kumar himself hails from a backward caste, while the two deputy chief ministers in Bihar are also from backward communities, with one of them being a woman, Tyagi said. Both deputy chief ministers in the state are from the BJP.