LJP, RLSP demand same number of LS seats in Bihar as 2014

PATNA: The Bharatiya Janata Partys problems with allies appear to be far from over After the Janata Dal United smaller allies such as the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party are voicing their displeasure over their supposed share of seats

Updated At : 05:33 PM Nov 09, 2018 IST

Patna, November 9

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s problems with allies appear to be far from over. After the Janata Dal (United), smaller allies such as the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party are voicing their displeasure over their supposed share of seats.

Months of intense negotiations between the BJP and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD-U led the parties to finally agree on a formula for Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. Although neither party has admitted to it, rumour mills have it that the two will be divide 34 seats equally, leaving the rest for the LJP and the RSLP.

However, this formula—arrived at after BJP’s first proposal of talking 20 seats for itself and leaving the rest for its allies was rejected by the JD-U—appears to be left its smaller allies seething. Both Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, which won six of seven seats it contested in 2014, and the Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP, which won all three seats it contested, appear to want the same share of seats they previously had.

These rumours were especially strengthened when LJP’s Bihar unit chief Pashupati Paras—a state minister—dismissed as “kite-flying” rumours that his party and the RLSP were likely to make 'sacrifices' for the bigger parties.

"No seat-sharing talks will be complete until national presidents of all the four NDA alliance partners—BJP, JD (U), LJP and RLSP—sit together. That is yet to happen. All that is appearing in the media is hawa hawai (kite flying),” Paras—LJP chief Paswan’s younger brother—said.

He also said to a question, he said: "Obviously we would like to contest from at least seven seats. We had won six of the seven from which we had contested last time, and lost one by a slender margin of 7,000 votes. …Our graph has not gone down since the last Lok Sabha poll and there is no reason why we should not get our due share."

When he was pointed out that Shah and Kumar had announced they would be sharing seats equally, Paras said it indicated “nothing”.

"The 50-50 formula could mean anything. It could even imply that the BJP and the JD (U) would be fighting only 10 each, leaving the remaining 20 for other allies," he said.

The RLSP meanwhile has made it clear that nothing less than three seats would be acceptable.

Madhaw Anand, the party's national general secretary and spokesman, told PTI: "There is no question of our agreeing to less than three seats. In fact, Kushwaha has conveyed the same to the BJP national secretary general in-charge of Bihar, Bhupendra Yadav, in person and to Shah over telephone".

Kushwaha had met RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav at a Bihar town, minutes after Shah and Kumar announced in Delhi on October 26 that they had reached a seat-sharing arrangement, fuelling speculation of a political realignment in the state.

The RLSP chief, who is known to have been sharing an uneasy relationship with Kumar, has maintained that he was firmly with the NDA even as Tejashwi Yadav said there was a standing invitation to the party to join the Grand Alliance.

Relations between Kushwaha and Kumar soured recently after the chief minister remarked that speaking about the dispute over seat-sharing with the RLSP was tantamount to lowering the standard of discourse.

Kushwaha has taken affront to the remark, claiming that Kumar, who is his erstwhile mentor, had in effect called him a lowly person and had taunted him for having joined hands with the BJP again, after taking umbrage over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's caustic remark about his political DNA during the 2015 assembly election. — Agencies

LJP, RLSP demand same number of LS seats in Bihar as 2014

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