Bihar Seat-Sharing Formula: Sealing the seat-sharing arrangement for the Lok Sabha elections with Bihar allies, BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday announced that his party and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) will contest 17 seats each, while Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP will fight on the remaining six.  Paswan will be sent to the Rajya Sabha at the earliest opportunity, he told reporters here, following a brief meeting with Kumar and the Lok Janshakti Party chief, who is also a Cabinet minister in the Modi government.


The much-anticipated meeting between the three leaders took place at Shah's home this morning. In a joint briefing, Amit Shah said, "Janata Dal (United) will fight on 17, BJP will fight on 17 and Lok Janshakti Party will fight on 6 seats. In 2019 we will get more seats from what we got in 2014."

Paswan will be sent to the Rajya Sabha at the earliest opportunity, Shah told reporters, following a brief meeting with Kumar and the Lok Janshakti Party chief, who is also a Cabinet minister in the Modi government. Shah asserted that the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win more than 31 seats it had in 2014 and expressed confidence that it will come back to power in 2019. The state has 40 Lok Sabha seats.

The deal suggests a victory of sorts for the LJP, which had adopted an aggressive stand seeking a better bargain from the BJP after the exit of Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP from the ruling alliance.

Kumar too has managed to underline his importance for the saffron party, which will now contest on fewer number of seats than it had contested in 2014 and won 22 of them. The BJP will now have to let go of at least five of its winning seats.

The JD(U), which had fought the 2014 polls independently, and the LJP, which was a BJP ally, had won two and six seats respectively. Shah said all allies will soon decide on distribution of Lok Sabha constituencies among them for fielding their candidates in 2019.

Paswan, whose son Chirag had created a flutter with his comments seen as critical of the BJP and the central government, claimed Sunday there was never a problem in the alliance as he has nurtures the "NDA tree" for five years under Modi's leadership. A government under Modi will be formed again, he said.

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In his address at United NDA’s joint meeting Nitish Kumar said, "When Amit Shah has declared the seat-sharing in Bihar then there isn’t much to add. Since we’ve decided it, we’ll work together." "We are committed to development in Bihar. We are of the opinion that the Ram Mandir matter should be solved through a court decision," Kumar further said.