BJP reviews Bihar alliance strategy

Patna: Senior BJP leaders in Bihar met here Friday to discuss strategy for the 2019 general election, and also review campaigns to woo voters, in the backdrop of a raging debate over seat-sharing that has surfaced suddenly within the NDA fold.

The Lok Janshakti Party is not ready to compromise on any of the six seats it had won in 2014, and neither is the RLSP, which won all the three seats it contested in the last general election.

The JD(U), which had contested separately in 2014, had been reduced to winning just two out of 40 seats. The party, however, returned to the NDA fold in July 2017 and it now wants to contest 25 seats.

“All issues related to seat-sharing will be sorted out amicably. There is no trouble within the NDA. This unity is for the state’s development and we saw this when all alliance partners sat together on Thursday,” BJP leader and state road minister Nand Kishore Yadav told this newspaper after Friday’s meeting.

The state unit core group meeting was also attended by BJP national general secretary and Bihar in-charge Bhupendra Yadav. Sources said the BJP was upset over the hectic lobbying by RLSP leaders for Upendra Kushwaha’s name as the CM face. The BJP also sees the RLSP posturing as a tactic to drive a hard bargain over seat-sharing.

RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha didn’t turn up for the crucial dinner meeting convened by the BJP in Patna on Thursday. RLSP leaders said Mr Kushwaha was upset over CM Nitish Kumar being declared as the NDA’s face in Bihar.

Mr Kushwaha reached Patna on a three-day tour of Bihar on Friday. Asked about his absence from the NDA dinner, he said: “Due to some personal reasons I couldn’t attend the dinner meet. Other senior leaders from my party were present.” He added: “There is no trouble within the NDA. I don’t know why people are raising questions about my absence. BJP president Amit Shah also didn’t attend the event.”

Mr Kushwaha also refused to speak on the statements issued by his party working committee chief Nagmani declaring him the NDA’s face in Bihar. Mr Nagmani, speaking to this newspaper on Thursday, had claimed that Mr Kushwaha represents a community which is the largest after the Yadavs among OBCs in Bihar, and added that this community comprises 10 per cent of the state’s population.