Patna, Dec 27 (IANS): Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United on Sunday slammed former coalition partner Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) as a spoiler in the recent Assembly polls, terming its President Chirag Paswan a "Hanuman who set Ayodhya on fire".

JD-U's national spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Tyagi's comments came on at the last day of party's Executive Committee meeting here, where one of the core issues was party's under-performance in the Assembly elections, among other issues.

Ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls, Chirag Paswan-led LJP had parted ways with the NDA at the state level and given a majority of tickets to those candidates who were denied by the JD-U, while fighting in only those seats where JD-U was contesting, to play the role of a "vote cutter".

"Chirag himself announced that he is the Hanuman of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I know one Hanuman who had set Lanka on fire and I must say that Chirag is of that sort (of Hanuman) who has set Ayodhya (his own alliance) on fire," Tyagi said.

"Chirag is the son of socialist leader Ram Vilas Paswan who had made speeches only after paying respect to leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia, Bhim Rao Ambedkar and others of the same league. It is extremely unfortunate that his son has not taken the name of these social justice leaders and also of his father during the Assembly election in Bihar. Despite the LJP walking out of the NDA, he was seeking votes in the name of Narendra Modi," Tyagi alleged.

"After the election result, Nitish Kumar announced to step down from the CM's post. Our other leaders then convinced him that he is not a CM on the basis of numbers of MLAs but he is a CM because of his high credibility in Bihar," he said.

"In 2005, 2010 and 2015, Nitish Kumar had the upper hand in Bihar. Without his efforts, BJP would not stand here. Even in 2020, Nitish Kumar was the CM's face of NDA. During the meeting, party leaders emphasised on detecting those leaders or members responsible for anti-party activities in the polls," Tyagi added.