NDA seals seat pact for Bihar polls; JD-U, BJP to contest 101 each, Chirag’s party 29

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners on Sunday sealed the seat-sharing deal for the November Bihar Assembly elections with the BJP and Janata Dal United set to contest an equal number of seats for the first time since their alliance in the state in 2005.

As part of the arrangement formally shared by BJP’s Bihar election in-charge and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and the BJP would contest 101 seats each in the 243-member state Assembly. Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) led by Union Minister Chirag Paswan emerged the top gainer in parleys, bagging 29 seats.

Smaller NDA parties — former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha and Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) — settled for six seats each.

Meanwhile, BJP’s central election committee, which sat late into Sunday under the chairmanship of PM Modi, is expected to finalise candidates for Bihar elections with the first joint list of NDA nominees expected as early as Monday. All NDA allies, including the JD(U) and BJP, ended up losing their share of seats compared to what they contested in the 2020 Bihar elections. The reason — the need to accommodate Chirag who had contested and dented JD(U) prospects last time. After Chirag fielded 135 candidates, Nitish’s party was restricted to 43 seats out of 115 contested at the time while BJP gained big, bagging 74 of the 110 seats it fought.

Chirag’s 5.66 per cent vote share in the 2020 poll was enough to not just reduce JD(U)’s bench strength but also diminish its electoral stature compared to the BJP, a junior partner till then.

Following a series of talks led by BJP president JP Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah, NDA allies today signalled agreement to the deal, formalised today after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approval at the BJP’s central election committee meeting which he chaired.

Modi’s nod is learnt to have worked in favour of Chirag who got 29 seats though the BJP had initially intended to give him no more than 25.

But the formidable performance of Chirag’s party in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll (where it won all five seats contested) worked to his advantage.

HAM, which had asked for 15 seats, settled for six — one less than seven it got in 2020 when it had won four seats. RLM also contested on seven seats last time, getting six this year.

The top takeaway from the seat-sharing deal today was Nitish-led JD(U)’s reconciliation with the BJP’s primacy in Bihar politics. This will be the first time in the NDA coalition history in Bihar that the JD(U) will not contest a higher share of seats than the BJP.

Nitish's party had sought one seat more than the BJP to retain supremacy in the electoral arithmetic of Bihar.

During talks, leaders said the JD(U) won 12 of 16 LS seats contested in 2024 as against the BJP which won 12 of 17. But BJP reminded the JD(U) of 2020 when it won 74 seats -- way above JD(U)'s 43.

The seat sharing agreement was also stamped today by JD(U)'s national working president Sanjay Jha with Nitish leaving parleys to Nadda and Shah.

All NDA parties today spoke of the importance of keeping the coalition intact and signalled poll readiness by being the first to announce a seat-sharing agreement. Opposition Mahagathbandhan leaders are yet to reach a seat-sharing consensus.