BJP questions Kishor's Bihar seat-sharing statement

Patna: BJP’s defeat in Jharkhand has sparked off a debate in the NDA as to which party would get more seats to contest in the 2020 Assembly elections in Bihar.

A day after poll strategist and JD(U) leader Prashant Kishor said that the party should contest on more seats, the BJP reacted strongly and said that the “issue will be discussed during a meeting between top leadership”.

In a statement on Monday, BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said, “BJP believes in maintaining decorum, discipline and not to make any public statement which has only news value. All decisions in the NDA related to 2020 Assembly election is a matter of discussion between our top leaders.

“NDA is sure to sweep 2020 Bihar polls and defeat the Grand Alliance.”

Poll strategist and JD(U) leader Prashant Kishor had raised the political pitch by saying that chief minister Nitish Kumar is the leader of the NDA in Bihar and so the party should get more seats to contest in the Assembly polls scheduled in November 2020.

He had said that the Lok Sabha seat-sharing formula cannot be repeated during the Assembly elections.

“During the 2010 Assembly polls, the party in alliance with BJP had contested on the ratio of 1:1.4. The JD(U) is the bigger party in Bihar and has around 70 MLAs while the BJP has only 50 MLAs or so. Besides, Nitish Kumar is also the face of NDA in Bihar,” JD(U) leader Prashant Kishor had said in a statement on Sunday.  

Nitish Kumar has been NDA’s face in Bihar since 2005. In 2013, he had walked out of NDA over the elevation of Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, as the prime ministerial candidate.

In 2015 Assembly elections, his party JD(U) along with RJD and Congress had formed a grand alliance and defeated the BJP with a huge margin. However in July 2017 after the CBI registered corruption cases against RJD chief Lalu Yadav and his son Tejashwi Yadav, he returned to the NDA and formed a government with the support of BJP.

Sources claim that in the current scenario, the BJP is trying hard to put an end to all speculations regarding conflict among NDA constituents over the issue of seat-sharing.

However, a section in the BJP also seemed confident of working out a formula which will be acceptable to everyone in the NDA. In a statement, BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal said that “I don’t know on what grounds Prashant Kishor gave the statement but in the NDA, such things can only be discussed and worked out by our top leadership”.