The Bihar Assembly Elections are set to take place next month in October. The Janata Dal (United) – JD(U) is planning to go for 115 seats in the election polls, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have 128 seats. As per the sources, it will house the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) from its quota.
The BJP and JD(U) have been working together prudently to keep their seat-sharing partnership while dealing with combative strikes from the LJP at the same time.
In the 2010 assembly elections, the JD(U) had secured 141 seats while BJP was able to contest for 102 seats. At present, there are 53 legislators in the BJP and 71 MLAs in the JD(U)
As per a JD(U) source, “In 2010, there was just JD(U) and BJP, hence we did not have many issues over seat-sharing. We were part of the Grand Alliance in 2015 Assembly polls and contested 101 seats. Now that we are again part of the NDA and the senior partner, we are pressing for 115 seats. Let the BJP accommodate LJP and we will take care of Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) from our share.”
According to a statement made by a BJP leader, both the parties are looking forward to a fair-game of seat-sharing. The statement said – “Seat-sharing talks have been going in Delhi between top leaders of BJP and JD(U). It is difficult to say anything now about the numbers of seats. By conventional logic, we should contest as equal partners as we did in the last Lok Sabha polls. Our party had shown a large heart during the Lok Sabha polls by denying tickets to five sitting MPs and giving JD(U) equal seats (17 each) to contest. It is now the JD(U)’s turn to return the favor.”
He also added “We want some of their sitting seats and JD(U) wants some of ours. A lot also depends on the number of seats RJD will contest. The seat-sharing could be announced sometime in October.” – in response to the issues over several seats between both the parties.
As per his statement, the central leadership of BJP is in touch with the LJP and they are both working on resolving this issue.
