Bihar polls: NDA fails to reach consensus on seats, Bihar Polls,jitan Ram Manjhi,ham,ram Vilas Paswan, LJSP,bihar seats,seat sharing bihar,bihar assembly election 2015
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- Category: Bihar Political News
- Last Updated: Monday, 14 September 2015 16:27
Bihar polls: NDA fails to reach consensus on seats, Bihar Polls,jitan Ram Manjhi,ham,ram Vilas Paswan, LJSP,bihar seats,seat sharing bihar,bihar assembly election 2015
Trouble for the NDA began after Manjhi threatened to leave the alliance if he was not given as many seats as were being allotted to Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJSP.
Despite two days of hectic negotiations, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was unable to hammer out a seat-sharing arrangement with its allies for the coming Bihar assembly election.
According to the present seat-sharing arrangement, the BJP will contest 160 seats, LJSP 40, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) 25 seats and HAM 15.
Bihar has 243 seats.
The assembly elections will be held in the state in five phases—on 12, 16, 28 October and 1 and 5 November. The result will be announced on 8 November.
The BJP leaders are now trying to convince Manjhi to stay with the NDA.
“The BJP has offered 15 seats; another five members of his party will contest on BJP tickets. This is his best bet. There is no reason why there should be any differences within the NDA,” said a senior BJP leader involved in drawing up the election strategy for Bihar on condition of anonymity.
“We are talking regularly. There no differences within the NDA,” said Bhupender Yadav, BJP’s Bihar in-charge after meeting Manjhi.
BJP leaders believe that equating Manjhi and Paswan was not correct because Paswan has a bigger backing in Bihar than Manjhi.
Senior BJP leaders Dharmendra Pradhan, Anant Kumar and Bhupender Yadav on Sunday met party president Amit Shah to discuss Manjhi’s demand and its implications.
The three leaders also met Manjhi to convince him of the existing of seat-sharing plan.
“I am not angry. I am not upset, it is not correct to say that I am upset,” Manjhi told reporters on Sunday.
Political analysts say such a hard bargain by HAM was unexpected as it has no choice but to stay with the NDA.