PATNA: Seat-sharing deal among NDA partners for assembly elections has almost been sealed after Union minister and BJP’s election in-charge for Bihar Dharmendra Pradhan’s meeting with Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar in Patna on Sunday.
Accompanied by deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary, Pradhan discussed seat-sharing arrangements with Nitish. JD(U) working president Sanjay Kumar Jha was also present at the meeting. BJP leaders, however, described it a courtesy meeting.
Sources said the BJP and JD(U) have stuck a consensus, and an official announcement is expected to be made soon. The emerging formula indicated that JD(U) could contest on 102 seats and BJP on 101. The arithmetic has been reached keeping Nitish’s insistence of “at least one more seat than BJP” in mind. The sources claimed that Pradhan shared information about seats to be contested by BJP with Nitish.
The BJP-JD(U) has left 22 seats for Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (RV). The remaining 18 seats will be offered to other allies. Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Marcha are to be offered six and four seats, respectively, the sources said. Five seats may be offered to others.
Chirag is learnt to have prepared a list of at least 22 seats which the LJP(RV) intended to contest. However, some of the seats in the list are currently held by JD(U), BJP and HAM.
“Chirag is likely to meet Amit Shah in Delhi either today or tomorrow,” said an office-bearer of LJP(RV). Earlier, Chirag’s party had staked claim on 45 seats.
In the 2020 election, BJP contested 110 seats and won 74 of them. The JD(U) could manage only 43 seats of the 115 seats it contested. Former union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM had contested with Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM but now it is a part of NDA.