CM Nitish Kumar, BJP chief Nadda hold talks on seat-sharing

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 12

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday held a crucial meeting with BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda on seat-sharing among the NDA alliance partners for the assembly elections in the state.

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Nadda, who was accompanied by party colleagues like Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, national general secretary and state in charge Bhupendra Yadav and state president Sanjay Jaiswal, called on Kumar at his official residence 1, Anney Marg.

The JD(U) national president, who was accompanied by key party aide Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan, accorded a warm welcome to Nadda, who hails from Himachal Pradesh but was born and brought up in Patna. At the meeting, which lasted more than half an hour, leaders of the two parties are understood to have discussed the key issue of seat-sharing among alliance partners in the NDA, which also includes Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

The BJP leadership is also understood to have assured Kumar that it will intervene and iron out the differences that have of late cropped up between the JD(U) and the LJP on account of the belligerent stance adopted by the latters young president Chirag Paswan.

Kumar is believed to have expressed unhappiness over statements made by LJP president Chirag Paswan and stressed on early resolution so that there is no ambiguity in the minds of the voters. Much of the issue is related to the number of seats the allies will contest in the forthcoming elections. Aiming to increase the political relevance his party, Chirag Paswan is demanding a share corresponding with the number of Lok Sabha seats the LJP contested in 2019, in other words at least 42 seats in the 243-member Assembly. (with agency inputs)