Japan's ruling LDP to forgo Diet seat-cut bill this session

TOKYO - Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party will give up enacting a bill to reduce the number of House of Representatives seats during the ongoing parliamentary session scheduled to end next week, a senior opposition lawmaker who met his LDP counterpart said Wednesday.

Kazuhiko Shigetoku, Diet affairs committee head of the Centrist Reform Alliance, told reporters that Hiroshi Kajiyama of the LDP conveyed the party's intention regarding the bill, which was submitted by the LDP and its junior coalition partner the Japan Innovation Party and has triggered backlash from opposition forces.