NDA seat-sharing in Bihar: BJP to contest 17 seats, JD(U) in 16, Chirag Paswan’s party in 5

According to a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, after several rounds of discussion, the BJP is likely to contest in 17 seats, chief minister Nitish Kumar led Janata Dal (United) in 16 and the Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) in five seats. Bihar sends 40 members to the Lok Sabha.

No Lok Sabha seats have been allocated to the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) led by Paswan’s uncle, Pashupati Kumar Paras – a party that is an NDA member and currently has five MPs in the House. Paswan is likely to contest in Paras’s own seat and Paras may be offered a Rajya Sabha seat, according to BJP sources.

Of the remaining seats, the BJP wants to give one to Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha and one to Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), according to another BJP leader.

Although Kushwaha has demanded two seats, the BJP is trying to persuade him to accept one.

The Muzaffarpur seat, part of the BJP’s quota and currently held by it, may be allocated to another party that is expected to join the alliance – the Vikassheel Insaan Party VIP. In that case, the seat will be given to the VIP’s chief, Mukesh Sahani, a leader of the Nishad (fishermen) community in Bihar.

While the number of seats for each of the NDA partners has been fixed, there are still some loose ends that have to be finalised, including the switching of seats between the JD(U) and BJP. An official announcement regarding the seat distribution is likely to be made in the next few days.

Uncle vs nephew

In a post on social media Wednesday, Chirag Paswan wrote that the seat sharing had been finalised in a meeting with BJP national president J.P. Nadda.

As a member of the NDA, today in a meeting with BJP National President Hon Shri @jpnadda ji, we have together finalised the seat sharing in Bihar for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.
The same will be announced in due course.

एनडीए के सदस्य के रूप में आज भाजपा के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष… pic.twitter.com/hpAQNC5HKo

— युवा बिहारी चिराग पासवान (@iChiragPaswan)

A number of meetings took place over the past few days to give final shape to the seat distribution, with JP Nadda holding closed-door meetings with Paswan, which were also attended by former state BJP president Mangal Pandey.

According to a source, Paswan, currently the MP for Jamui, is likely to contest from the Hajipur constituency now held by his uncle, Paras.

This appears to indicate that the BJP has acknowledged Paswan and not his uncle as the claimant to the political legacy of his father, the late Ram Vilas Paswan. Hajipur was Ram Vilas Paswan’s citadel and his brother, Paras, was elected to represent the seat in 2019.

“There is a likelihood that Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, Chirag Paswan’s uncle, might be given a Rajya Sabha seat,” said a party functionary.

After infighting broke out within the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)- a party that Ram Vilas Paswan founded in 2000 – five of six LJP MPs in the Lok Sabha ousted Chirag Paswan and elected his uncle, Paras, as the chief of the party in June 2021.

“My family was broken. My party was broken but I did not break”, Chirag Paswan had said at a public rally in Vaishali district last Sunday.

The Election Commission of India had allocated separate names and symbols to the two warring leaders’ parties. The EC allocated the name ‘LJP (Ram Vilas)’ and ‘the helicopter’ symbol to Paswan while Paras’s faction was given the name ‘Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party’, with the ‘sewing machine’ symbol. There’s currently a freeze on the LJP’s name and election symbol.

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