Seat selection key to Bihar alliance

The grand alliance between the Janata Dal (U) of Nitish Kumar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prasad and the Congress has taken another definite step forward with the finalisation of its seat sharing arrangement for the Bihar assembly elections. The JD(U) and the RJD will contest 100 seats each and the Congress 40, and three seats have been left for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The alliance has crossed its first major hurdle with the acceptance of Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial candidate by Lalu Prasad. Nitish and Lalu Prasad are long-term political rivals. But Lalu showed a sense of realism in accepting Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate. Lalu is barred from contesting elections after his conviction in the fodder scam. The Congress, his old alliance partner, may have gone with the JD(U), if it had to choose between him and Nitish. Persuasion by Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and others also had a role. Lalu also probably realised the importance of putting up a united front against the BJP.

Both the JD(U) and the RJD have made compromises to settle for an equal sharing if seats. In the 2010 polls, the JD(U) had contested 141 seats in alliance with the BJP and the RJD 168 seats in alliance with the Lok Janshakti Party(LJP) which is now with the BJP. While the JD(U) won 115 seats, the RJD won only 22. But in the last Lok Sabha elections, while the RJD alliance secured 28.8 per cent votes, the JD(U) got only 18.8 per cent. Partnership in alliances made assessment of the individual strength of both parties difficult. So, the best course open to both was to treat each other equally, with JD(U) getting a slight edge with Nitish being projected as chief minister. But the RJD can look forward to winning more seats than last time.

The Congress got the best deal with 40 seats, though it had won only 4 seats out of the 243 it contested in the 2010 polls. It got the deal probably because of its 8.4 per cent vote share could prove decisive in many seats, especially if there is a close contest. The next task before the alliance is the identification of seats to be contested by each. The NCP and the SP, which got no seat, are unhappy, but they don’t have any sizeable base in the state. The most important challenge for the alliance now is to convert the vote share percentages, which together favour it, into actual votes when the elections are held.