New Delhi/Patna: Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar managed to keep the upper hand as ally BJP on Friday announced that both parties would contest for an equal number of seats, out of the total 40 in the state, in next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
The announcement, by BJP chief Amit Shah on Friday, came after months of negotiations during which rumours were afloat that the JD(U) chief was prepared to switch sides yet again to get a “respectable” bargain as far as seat-sharing was concerned.
Sources said that the BJP and JD(U) may settle for 17 seats each in Bihar under the 50- 50 formula. The LJP may get four and the RLSP may get two seats, despite the latter seeking a larger number of seats.
Mr Shah, who addressed the media jointly with Bihar chief minister after a meeting, said that both parties would fight on an equal number of seats and Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) will remain with the NDA.
The BJP chief added that all allies would now have to contest less number of seats as new ally JD(U) has to be accommodated. Mr Kumar said, “The number of seats of each party will be announced in a few days.”
The chief minister, along with the JD(U)’s newly-appointed vice-president Prashant Kishore, had come to Delhi to discuss seat-sharing issues with the BJP leadership.
It might be recalled that the Bihar chief minister had last year exited the RJD-Congress grand alliance in the state and had joined the NDA.
In 2014, the BJP had won 25 out of the 40 seats and the JD(U), which was then part of the RJD-Congress “Mahagathbandhan”, won just two. The LJP won six seats and RLSP got two. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won four and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won one.
The fact that despite having won a mere two seats in last general elections, the JD(U) managed to garner a many LS seats as the BJP in Bihar shows that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Shah have turned more accommodative towards allies.
Also, the recent bypoll results in Bihar have signalled resurgence of the RJD since the incarceration of its chief Lalu Prasad Yadav in graft cases. While not the only reason, this might have contributed to the BJP’s decision to be more accommodative towards its ally.
Political analysts are of the opinion that the 50-50 formula between the JD(U) and the BJP may force the LJP to drop at least one of its sitting Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
Soon after the announcement by Mr Shah and Mr Kumar, Mr Kushwaha, who has been playing hardball with the BJP, met RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s son Tejashwi Yadav putting a question mark over Mr Shah’s claim that the seat-sharing issue with allies in Bihar had been settled.
An RLSP leader said, “Party leadership will take a final decision on the issue but we were hoping to get a call from the BJP to discuss the seat-sharing formula”.
RLSP leader Jitendra Nath Singh told this newspaper, “There has been no discussion regarding the issue but we hope that the BJP will consider our party’s base while announcing the number of seats.”
Incidentally, the RLSP chief is not the only one who was demanding more seats as a condition to remain in the NDA. JD(U) chief Mr Kumar had himself indicated a couple of times before the monsoon session of Parliament that he was ready to switch sides yet again his demands were not met.
