Seat-sharing in NDA expected to be finalised by September 15

PATNA: In the run-up to the Bihar Assembly elections, the seat-sharing formula in the National Democretic Alliance (NDA), is expected to be evolved by September 15.

Sources the in Bihar unit of the BJP said party national president JP Nadda may visit Patna soon to discuss seat-sharing with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. There is a buzz that the bigger parties in the formation, such as the JD-U and the BJP, may contest on 100 to 110 seats each and the rest of the seats will be allocated to other alliance partners such as the LokJanshakti Party (LJP)andJitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani AwamMorcha (HAM).

Sources say the seat-sharing formula among alliance partners of the NDA is getting delayed since the LJP had earlier expressed its desire to contest on 143 out of the 243 total seats in Bihar.

On Monday, the LJP parliamentry board said it intended to fight on 143 seats. This was confirmed by the party's official spokesperson Asraf Ansari.

In the 2015 Assembly election in the state, the JD-U was part of the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) along with the RJD. At that time, the RJD had emerged as the single-largest party with 74 seats and the JD-U had bagged 69. Subsequently, when the JD-U switched to the NDA following differences with the RJD, just four parties remained in the alliance: these included the Congress (26 seats), the CPI-ML (three seats) and the AIMIM (one seat), seat apart from the RJD. In the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) the BJP, the LJP, the RLSP and the HAM had fought the 2015 assembly elections together with the LJP, which had contested on 40 seats at that time and won just two. The BJP had won 54 seats and the HAM 1. This time round, the RLSP, headed by former Union minister UpendraKushwaha, has decided to move out of the NDA.

Meanwhile, top leaders of the BJP have already launched campaigning in their respective constituencies.

Akhilesh Kumar Singh, spokesperson of BJP's Bihar unit, said: "Our leaders are not waiting for finalisation of seat-sharing among all alliance partners. They have started election campaigns in their respective constituencies. For instance, MoS Home NityaNandRai was in Siwan on Tuesday and Radha Mohan Singh in Sitamarhi. Along with him, Vinod Narayan Jha, Giriraj Singh and state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal are also campaigning in different constituencies," said Singh.

"The idea is to promote NDA candidates across all 243 seats and not just any individual party's expected candidates. Our leaders are campaigning for the BJP, the JDU, the LJP and the HAM: not just for our own party. We want the NDA to achieve full majority in the upcoming elections," Singh said. (IANS)

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