The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) finally arrived at a seat-sharing formula between chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday for the Bihar Assembly elections.
The JDU will contest 122 seats and the BJP 121 in the 243-seat House.
“Our party will contest from 122 seats and the BJP will contest from 121. The agreement has been reached. Both the parties (JDU and BJP) will go to the polls together and campaign jointly,” JDU secretary-general K.C. Tyagi told The Telegraph.
The JDU will accommodate former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular). Sources said five seats in southern Bihar would be given to the party and Manjhi was expected to fight from two among them.
The BJP is expected to spare a few seats for the Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) of Bollywood set designer Madan Sahni. He had quit the Opposition Grand Alliance on Sunday soon after finding out that the party had not been given any seat while the allocation was being announced.
An official announcement on the NDA seat-sharing deal is expected on Tuesday.
The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which broke away from the NDA in Bihar on Sunday, had already announced that it would contest from 143 seats, including those from which the JDU would field candidates.
LJP leader and MP Chirag Paswan appealed to people on Monday not to vote for the JDU.
“This is a decisive time for Bihar and a matter of life and death for its 12-crore people. Even a single vote given to JDU candidates will force your children to migrate from the state,” Chirag said.
Bihar will go to polls in three phases on October 28, November 3 and 7. The counting will be done on November 10. The nomination filing process for the first phase started on October 1 with the last date being October 9.
However, the JDU started distributing tickets to its candidates on Monday itself, long before people could get a wind of the seat-sharing deal.
Several existing and former MLAs made a beeline for Nitish’s official residence at 1, Aney Marg in Patna after getting calls from senior party leaders asking them to collect their candidature papers and symbol to file nomination.
Altogether 71 constituencies, including those affected by Left-wing extremism in southern, central and western parts of the state, will witness voting in the first phase.
JDU secretary-general Tyagi said: “Since there is already an understanding on the number of seats each party will contest, our party has started distributing tickets to candidates. I think the BJP is also distributing tickets.”
However, there was no word from the BJP on the distribution of tickets till late on Monday evening. Its leaders said the party’s Bihar in-charge, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, and other senior leaders were expected to reach Patna on Monday night and make the announcements on Tuesday.
