The seat-sharing equation between the JD(U) and BJP has been revealed for the upcoming Bihar election for the 243 seats in the state assembly. On the opposition side the RJD, Congress, and three left parties have fixed the seat sharing. JD(U) under Nitish Kumar would be contesting on 122 seats out of the 243 seats with the BJP fielding candidates on the remaining121 seats.

Bihar assembly election 2020 is set to be carried out in three phases beginning from October 28 with the results to be announced on November 10.

As stated in the agreement on seat sharing between the BJP led group and JD(U) led alliance, within the later, ten seats have been provided to  Hindustani Awam Morcha under the former CM of the state, Jitan Ram Manjhi. HAM had left the opposition alliance assembled by RJD under Tejashwi Yadav. Manjhi will be running for the polls from the Imamganj seat in the Gaya district. He has stated that his return to the JD(U) fold is due to a mutual understanding with Nitish Kumar.

Lok Janshakti Party of Paswans would be kept in the BJP alliance if Chirag Paswan (son of Ram Vilas Paswan) assures that LJP would remain in coalition with BJP for the 2020 assembly polls and after it. It remains to be seen how valid the assurance of LJP will stay in case JD(U) and RJD make significant gains vis-à-vis BJP. Ram Vilas Paswan is currently in a hospital while LJP is trying to bite out a larger share of seats than the JD(U) is willing to let go to the BJP alliance. In the latest development, LJP has been offered 15 seats on Paswan jr.’s demand of at least 42 seats under the BJP fold. LJP would fight against the Nitish-led alliance on the ground of mismanagement of the COVID19 situation and the crisis of the migrant workers in Bihar. This can pose a problem to JD(U) but can be relatively beneficial to BJP.

Ram Vilas Paswan has been in alliance with all the governments at the centre since the inception of the party in 1989 in its play of political opportunism and survival. Therefore, BJP is hoping to pull all the pro-Modi but anti-Nitish votes through association with LJP. A Patna- based LJP leader, in this context has revealed that the party has the potential to get around 6-12% of votes which can spoil the political fight of JD(U). As the equation between LJP and JD(U) deteriorated, LJP has vowed to fight against all the JD(U) candidates and simultaneously support BJP.

Discussions held between JD(U) and BJP which lasted for four hours on seat sharing was led by Lalan Singh, RCP Singh, Vijay Chaudhary, and Vijendra Yadav from JD(U) and Devendra phadnavis, the BJP election chief in Bihar and BJP General secretary- Bhupendra Yadav at the residence of Bihar BJP chief JP Nadda. As the discussions on the seat-sharing among the coalition partners concluded, the BJP and JD(U) are set to contest on 119 seats each.

In this context, Tejashwi Yadav has stated that his party, RJD as a step to build the opposition Mahagathbandhan will bring in Vikassheel Insan party and Jharkhand Mukti Morch in alliance with RJD which is set to contest over 144 seats. Apart from this, the opposition alliance provided 29 seats to three parties of Left- CPM (4), CPI-ML(19), and CPI(6). The equation between the RJD and Congress seemed to have improved. It is indicated in the fact that RJD has allowed Congress to fight on 70 seats in contrast to the earlier expectation that it would not provide more than 60 seats to the grand old party. This seems to comfort the situation for RJD which has suffered some challenges and setbacks while setting up the opposition alliance for the Bihar polls. At first, the Bihar Congress chief, Avinash Pande had stated that the party is ready to contest polls on all of the 243 seats. More trouble came for RJD when Chandrika Rai from Saran district, Faraz Fatmi, Jaiwardhan Yadav, and three other MLAs left RJD to join the JD(U). Coming on common ground with the Congress by giving it 70 seats to contest in the Opposition-Mahagathbandhan has given a shot in the arm of RJD in the upcoming polls.