A National Democratic Alliance delegation on Wednesday met the Election Commission to demand early assembly elections in Bihar, preferably before the onset monsoon.

The delegation also demanded that the polls be held in fewer phases.

• NDA to move EC on Bihar polls

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, NDA's chief ministerial candidate, Nitish Kumar, said:  "The same speed should be shown in ensuring early polls with which they dissolved the assembly."

Kumar said since assembly polls were held only early this year in Bihar, the list of voters and polling booths must be ready with the Election Commission.

Read all about the Bihar crisis

"So, instead of wasting much time, the polls can be held right away," he said.

The NDA also took exception to Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj's statement that the polls could be held earliest in September.

"We complained to the EC that it was its prerogative and not of the law minister to announce the poll dates," he said.

"The first phase of President's rule in the state will be over on September 6 and it becomes the constitutional duty of the EC to ensure that a new assembly is in place before that," Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Arun Jaitley, who was also part of the delegation, said.