By Admin 
The politics of seat sharing has intensified before the upcoming Bihar assembly elections. Even before the formal talks between the NDA allies started, JDU ran his bet and announced a unilateral candidate. Chief Minister and JDU chief Nitish Kumar declared former minister Santosh Kumar Nirala a candidate from Rajpur seat during a meeting held in Buxar.
Rajpur assembly constituency is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC). Addressing the workers from the stage, Nitish Kumar said, “We have achieved many status of development in Bihar. Now it is the job of the public to support us and win Santosh Nirala from here.” Nirala lost to Vishwanath Ram of Congress in the 2020 election, but before that he has been an MLA twice and has also held a ministerial position in the government.
Rajpur seat is traditionally JDU- BJP
This announcement of JDU has increased the political stir. However, BJP and other NDA allies have not objected to this. BJP leaders say that the Rajpur seat has traditionally been JDU and Nitish Kumar has declared a candidate using his privilege. BJP spokesperson Manoj Sharma made it clear that in a few days the conversation on the formal seat sharing will be completed.
There is no need to give much heat to Nirala’s candidature- Neeraj Kumar
JDU spokesperson Neeraj Kumar also gave a statement that there is no need to give much to Nirala’s candidature. He said, “Nirala has represented this seat before. The Chief Minister, while interacting with the workers of Rajpur, considered the announcement of his candidature appropriate.”
Seats formula will be decided after 9 September
Sources say that the final decision regarding seat sharing in the NDA will be taken after the Vice President elections. After the voting is over on 9 September, the formula of the seats can be decided by calling a meeting of allies at any time. In the 2020 assembly elections, BJP contested 110 and JDU 115 seats. At that time JDU gave seven seats to Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party Hum (Secular), while BJP handed over 11 seats to Mukesh Sahni’s VIP. LJP then did heavy damage to the NDA by contesting elections alone.
However, in 2020, BJP won 74 seats, while JDU was reduced to just 43. Despite this, Nitish Kumar’s party is indicating that this time it also wants to contest more seats than BJP. At the same time, small parties like Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Hum (S) and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM are also engaged in getting more seats for themselves.
This is the first indication in Bihar politics that even though the talks about seat sharing are ahead, every party is busy in making an initial lead to secure their interests.