Seat-sharing in Bihar proving to be Achilles’ heel for both NDA and Grand Alliance

Patna: On record, all the constituents within the NDA as well as the Grand Alliance reiterate that “all is well” and “there is no confusion over seat-pact”, but the fact is it is this seat-sharing discussion which is proving to be Achilles’ heel for both sides of the fence.

Ever since, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan has made it clear that he would contest the Assembly polls and do state politics, instead of a national role, his party has been tirelessly putting up banners and posters with “Chirag - the future CM”.

Aware of the fact that this could upset the Chief Minister and the NDA face in Bihar Nitish Kumar, Chirag on Sunday reassured to all and sundry that “the Assembly elections will be contested under Nitish’s leadership” and he (Chirag) was not a claimant to the CM’s chair.

Sources in the ruling JD (U) told Deccan Herald that posters of ‘Chirag as future CM’ was a ploy to drive a hard bargain for more Assembly tickets. Chirag himself has indicated he would not settle with anything less than 40 seats in the 243-member Assembly.

Similar is the case with another junior partner in the NDA Jitan Ram Manjhi, whose pocket organisation HAM (Hindustan Awam Morcha) wants to contest as many seats as Chirag’s LJP.

High level sources within the NDA confided that seat-sharing talks will be finalised between the top leadership of the JD (U) and the BJP. “In all probability, the JD (U) will contest 102 seats and the BJP 101 seats. The remaining 40 seats will be distributed between the three allies – the LJP, HAM and Upendra Kushwaha’s fledgling outfit RLM (Rashtriya Lok Morcha), with Chirag likely to get 25 seats due to the LJP’s winning strike rate,” the senior ruling party source told DH, strictly on the condition of anonymity.

Similar is the scenario in the Mahagatbandhan, the Bihar avtaar of the Grand Alliance, where the RJD leader and former Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav has made it amply clear that the main Opposition party – the RJD - would contest on 140 seats and leave the remaining 103 seats for the Congress, CPI, CPM, CPI-ML and the VIP (Vikas-sheel Insaan Party).

While the Congress has reiterated that it would like to contest on at least 70 seats (the same number of seats it contested in 2020), the founder of VIP, Mukesh Sahni, the self-styled leader of numerically-strong Nishads (mostly boatmen/fishermen) too wants a larger pie as he aspires to be the next Deputy CM if the Mahagatbandhan comes to power.

“Our primary aim is to dethrone NDA in Bihar. Therefore, seat-sharing will not be a stumbling block for the larger goal,” averred the newly-appointed Bihar Congress president Rajesh Ram.