With the announcement of assembly election dates in Bihar, the dispute regarding seat sharing in NDA has increased. JDU and HAM have expressed displeasure over Chirag Paswan’s claim on their seats.

JDU has given a clear message to BJP that ‘deal with Chirag yourself’. This clash points to deepening differences within the NDA, which is complicating the seat sharing formula.

Controversy increased over seat sharing

According to sources, JDU is not in favor of giving its sitting seats to Chirag Paswan. These include Mahnar, Matihani and Chakai seats. JDU state president Umesh Kushwaha’s seat is Mahnar, which Chirag Paswan wants, but the party is not ready to give it up.

Similarly, Matihani seat was won by Chirag’s party in 2020, but later the MLA joined JDU. Now JDU wants to keep it in its account again. Controversy has also deepened on Chakai seat, where the current independent MLA Sumit Singh is a minister and a JDU supporter.

BJP and Manjhi are also adamant on their seats

BJP is also not ready to give its sitting seat to Govindganj Chirag. This seat is in the possession of the current BJP MLA, while Chirag wants it for his party’s Bihar state president Raju Tiwari.

On the other hand, Manjhi’s party is also not in favor of giving its seat to Sikandra Chirag. Chirag Paswan demands that he should get such seats where his candidates can win, but both JDU and us are not ready to give up our seats.

Talks incomplete, decision will be taken in Delhi

On this tug of war going on in NDA, JDU sources have said that the news of consent of seats being circulated in the media is not completely correct. Right now the talks are incomplete and now this discussion will take place in Delhi. JDU leaders have also said that they will not put forward their demands publicly. The party has made it clear that the future strategy will be decided only after talks with the BJP leadership.

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.