BJP appoints Fadnavis as Bihar election in-charge, seat sharing talks begin

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday appointed former Maharashtra chief minister, Devender Fadnavis as the in-charge for the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar, which will be conducted in three phases; and began the process of formal discussion on seat sharing with allies.

Deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Modi is in Delhi to be part of the seat-sharing talks which will be conducted with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners, the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) over the course of the next few days.

While the LJP has been threatening to put up contestants against the JD(U), if its demand for a respectable seat allocation is not met; BJP leaders said the differences will be sorted out at the meetings. The LJP leadership also held meetings ahead of the formal talks with the BJP.

Even as the BJP leadership has asserted that the election will be contested with chief minister Nitish Kumar being in the saddle; there is also pressure from the cadre to divide the seats equally between the JD(U) and the BJP. The JD(U) for its part is insistent that the party should get more seats than the other partners, even if it is a single digit more.

According to a functionary, a suggestion from the cadre is to divide between 105-110 seats between the BJP and the JD(U), leaving the rest for the HAM-S and LJP.

“The BJP has appointed leaders to negotiate with the allies on the issue of seat sharing,” BJP general secretary and in-charge of Bihar Bhupender Yadav said. He added, all partners will carry out an extensive study of the constituencies to arrive at a decision on which seats are best suited for which alliance partner.

This is the second time that Yadav and Fadnavis will work as a team for the state assembly polls; Yadav was the election in-charge for Maharashtra when Fadnavis was seeking re-election.