Allies want NDA seat-sharing plan to be worked out in 7 days
25 Aug 2015 6:25 AM IST
The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) – the two key constituents of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA, on Monday demanded that the seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Bihar polls be done within a week and suggested that the saffron party contests 101 seats and <g data-gr-id="32">leave</g> the remaining 142 to its allies.
LJP’s Bihar unit president Pashupati Paras and his Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) counterpart Arun Kumar made the demand at a joint press conference in the state capital.
The two leaders also asked the BJP to change the slogan for the state polls, due later this year, from ‘Abki Bar BJP sarkar’ to ‘Abki Bar NDA sarkar’ so that the message can be taken to all workers of the coalition partners.
Kumar said that while there was no doubt that the Bihar polls would be contested under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the slogan in the name of NDA would enthuse workers of all parties.
<g data-gr-id="27">Paras</g>, the brother of LJP national president and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, told reporters that the seat-sharing agreement should be reached within a week’s time.
Kumar, who is also an MP, said he is for the drawing up of an early seat-sharing pact among the NDA partners so that candidates get sufficient time to prepare for the polls.
He said that delay in the announcement of seats for the recent election for 24 Legislative Council seats from local bodies led to a “lack of coordination among workers of partners due to which the coalition could not win more seats”.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had won 12 of the 24 seats in the July poll, while JD(U), RJD and Congress had together bagged 10 seats with two going to Independents.
The state chief of RLSP said his party’s national executive at Hajipur had proposed that in addition to BJP contesting 101 seats, LJP should be given 75 seats while RLSP should contest 67 seats.
As Hindustani <g data-gr-id="41">Awam</g> Morcha (HAM) of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, too, is part of the NDA coalition, some seats have to be given to it, they said, adding that 142 seats should thus be left for NDA allies.
Meanwhile, HAM spokesman Danish Rizwan, too, said that his party favours early declaration of NDA’s seat-sharing arrangement for the Bihar polls.
Asked about the number of seats each party should be allocated, he said, “HAM believes in talking on this during an NDA meeting and not through media.”
Millennium Post had on Monday reported that LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan has ruled out his being in
the race for NDA’s chief ministerial candidate, saying he would like to remain in the national
politics.
BJP to focus on package, development agenda
Running an aggressive campaign in the high stakes Bihar Assembly elections, the BJP will focus on the Rs 1.25-lakh crore package in its second round of electioneering and hopes to cash on voters who it feels are no longer swayed by issues like caste to trounce the Nitish-Lalu combine. Sources said BJP would start its second round of ‘parivartan <g data-gr-id="64">rath</g>’ from Wednesday and highlight its development agenda centred around the massive package announced by the PM last week.
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