PATNA: The two main constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, are likely to fight slightly over 100 seats each in the assembly elections scheduled later this year, with the former pushing to get a symbolic advantage of even a seat or two to underscore that chief minister Nitish Kumar will remain in charge, senior NDA leaders aware of developments said on Wednesday.
Bihar has 243 seats, of which the NDA holds 131 and the Opposition holds 111.
The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) is likely to get around 20 seats, the leaders cited above said.
The seat-sharing formula , which has already been broadly decided, is set to be announced before the end of September, a senior NDA leader said requesting anonymity. “All the parties in the NDA by and large know which seats they will fight and they are working unitedly for each seat on the ground. The announcement will happen at the appropriate time,” the senior NDA leader said.
Kumar himself pointed towards ”some understanding” earlier this week when he declared JD(U) candidate for the Rajpur seat in Buxar during his address to a gathering, even though seat-sharing is yet to be formally announced.
“The consultation process has been going on for quite some time and more will happen in the days to come. If NDA eyes 225 seats in the 243-member assembly, it has to put its best foot forward on every seat and that is precisely the reasons why constituency-wise vigorous joint campaigning has been going on. All the senior leaders of the parties have got a fair idea about their seats as many are winning seats,” said a second senior leader, also declining to be named.
{{/usCountry}}“The consultation process has been going on for quite some time and more will happen in the days to come. If NDA eyes 225 seats in the 243-member assembly, it has to put its best foot forward on every seat and that is precisely the reasons why constituency-wise vigorous joint campaigning has been going on. All the senior leaders of the parties have got a fair idea about their seats as many are winning seats,” said a second senior leader, also declining to be named.
{{/usCountry}}The JD(U) and the BJP are likely to keep between 205 and 210 seats between them, with the former pushing to get at least one or two seats more than the BJP to drive home the message that Kumar was still in a position to call the shots. During the Lok Sabha elections last year, the JD(U) fought 17 seats and the BJP 16. Both parties won 12 seats each.
Whenever the JD(U) and BJP have fought the assembly elections in Bihar together, the former has contested more seats than the latter.
Between 35-40 seats will be distributed between LJP(RV), Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular) of Jitan Ram Manjhi, and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) of Upendra Kushwaha.
LJP (RV) has a stronger claim due to its performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when it won all five seats it fought. In 2020, unhappy with the seat-sharing formula, the then unified LJP had contested independently and damaged the NDA, especially the JD(U), in several seats.
In 2020, the JD(U) had contested 115 seats, but won just 43. The BJP contested 110 seats and won 74.
“The overriding thing is that the NDA is strong and united with a common objective of forming the government with a decisive mandate ...When the time comes, seat sharing will also be announced and it will be smooth like it was during the Lok Sabha election,” said Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai.
JD-U working president Sanjay Jha said that seat-sharing might be an issue for the Opposition but it was no problem for the NDA, where there was no question on the proven track record of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Nitish Kumar. “There was no issue just a year ago during the Lok Sabha election and the cohesion within the NDA has only grown,” he added.