New Delhi, Feb 13 (IANS): With eight months to go for the Bihar Assembly elections, political parties have started preparations for the same. The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which has considerable following among Dalits, seems to have taken a lead over others and has formed a seven-member committee to prepare a 'vision document'.

A statement issued by the party said that its president Chirag Paswan, who recently took the mantle from his father Ram Vilas Paswan, has formed a drafting committee that will prepare the vision document for the state. The drafting committee has seven members, including party president Chirag Paswan, Abdul Khalik, Prince Raj, S.K. Bajpai, Saurabh Pandey, Shahnawaz Kaifi and Raju Tiwari. The committee will tour the state and will interact with the party cadres and then prepare the document which will eventually become the party manifesto.

In the last Assembly polls in 2015, the LJP had fought the elections as an ally with the NDA. At that time, apart from the LJP, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) were also part of the NDA. But, both RLSP and HAM later moved out of the NDA.

The LJP has started its election preparations, and according to party sources, has identified 119 seats where both the BJP and the JDU are weak. The party has started its preparations on these seats.

The party feels that out of the 119 seats, it is in a position to win at least 54 and is capable of giving a tough fight on the rest of 22 seats.

The party has already started identifying candidates for these seats.