PATNA, Aug 22:
After the JD(U) led secular alliance it is the turn of the BJP now to face heat over seat sharing among its allies for the crucial Bihar assembly polls.
BJP chief Amit Shah, who was in the state capital to gauge mood of partymen and to know assessment of the core committee about number of seats the party should contest, seemed in a hurry to finalise the contentious issue of seat sharing with Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP), Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).
Mr Shah’s urgency to reach seat adjustment with the allies of BJP led NDA stems from the fact that the Election Commission (EC) has almost completed its preparations and might announce election dates anytime now.
Highly placed sources in BJP’s state level core committee said the party has made up its mind to contest at least 150 of the total 243 seats at stake in the upcoming polls.
Should Mr Shah decide to go with popular expectation of state partymen to contest 150 seats, it would leave only 93 seats for distribution among its three allies-Ram Bilas Paswan led LJP, Upendra Kushwaha led RLSP and Jeetan Ram Manjhi led HAM.
Under such a situation bargaining prowess and political acumen of Mr Shah would be tested when he sets out on breaking the Gordian knot of the mutually antagonistic and unrealistic demands of the allies.
As it is Union Minister of state for human resources and RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha has been more vocal on demanding an “honourable” number of seats for his party. He in fact set the benchmark for seat sharing talks the day Mr Shah was in the state capital.
He said in uncertain terms that the BJP should limit itself to the number of seats it had contested in 2010 in the company of its erstwhile partner BJP.
For record the BJP had contested 102 seats in 2010 assembly polls and won 92 seats with a strike rate of nearly 90 per cent while the JD(U) had won 115 of the 141 seats it had contested in the last elections.
Going by Mr Kushwaha’s contention, the BJP while limiting itself to 102 seats should distribute the remaining 141 seats for LJP, RLSP and HAM.
Prior to induction of HAM into NDA, he had stated that LJP should contest 74 seats and RLSP 67. On the day Kushwaha inducted rebel JD(U) MLA Gautam Singh against the wishes of state BJP leadership, he had also stated that LJP and RLSP would scale down their shares to accommodate HAM and the BJP should contest 102 seats in the upcoming polls.
To make matter worse, HAM founder and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has also already declared that his party would walk out of NDA if an “honourable” number of seats was not given to his party which has been given recognition by the EC.
Manjhi’s colleague and state HAM President Shakuni Chaudhary had earlier staked claims on 74 seats. LJP parliamentary board chairman Chirag Paswan, MP, had recently met BJP chief Amit Shah in Delhi apparently to communicate his party’s expectation to contest the number of seats.
The LJP with six members in the Lok Sabha would definitely seek more number of seats than RLSP which has three members in the Lok Sabha.
But by all indications, the BJP would not be cowed down by high demands from its allies especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to provide a special economic package of Rs 1,25 lakh crore and an additional central assistance of Rs 40,657 crore for Bihar had given a distinct edge to the BJP over JD(U) led secular alliance.
Morever, the BJP cannot afford to concede higher number of seats to its allies as it would have to accommodate a large number of “defectors” who have joined the party recently. As many as seven JD(U) MLAs have so far joined the BJP in the recent past and if state party chief Mangal Pandey were to be believed about two dozen more leaders, mostly MLAs from JD(U) and RJD would join BJP in near future.
Political observers feel that the allies, specially LJP and RLSP, after making hullabaloo over seat allocation, would finally bow to the wishes of the BJP leadership lest both Ram Bilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha take the ultimate course of resigning from the Narendra Modi government in the interest of their parties. (UNI)
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