Bihar Assembly Election 2020: Seat tussle continues in NDA, RJD mocks 'Ghar ka Chirag'

Bihar Assembly elections dates may be announced anytime soon. Just before this, there is a lot of tussle over seat-sharing among all the parties and coalition partners. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) national team is focussed on Bihar before the elections. Meanwhile, BJP national president JP Nadda, Bihar BJP election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, and BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal also met CM Nitish Kumar recently.

This time the National Democratic Alliance needs a fresh seat-sharing formula as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) both fought the last Bihar Assembly Elections in 2015, separately. 

JDU spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan said that there is no confusion about seat-sharing in NDA. A shared announcement will be made on time. The opposition should worry about it. He also said that the NDA under Nitish Kumar's leadership will go to the polls and the blessings of the people are almost certain.

On this matter, BJP spokesperson Akhilesh Singh said that there is no problem in NDA. The problem is in the 'Mahagathbandhan'. Their leaders are leaving the party from RJD. The alliance partners are also leaving Lalu Prasad Yadav. The RJD-Congress's grand alliance is a sinking boat.

On this matter, RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari said that grand alliance leaders are on the same page they have got their communication channels open. But the NDA partners do not look very upbeat after they meet each other. Taking a potshot at LJP president Chirag Paswan's pressure politics Tiwari said that NDA's own house will be burnt by their 'Ghar ka Chirag'. 

Actually, LJP President Chirag Paswan is constantly resorting to pressure politics for more seats in NDA. At the same time, he is also targeting CM Nitish Kumar. 

NDA is a divided house on the seat-sharing formula. Let us have a look at what all the three major alliance partners are proposing.

The BJP formula

After distributing seats to allies of the alliance, BJP and JDU fought on the remaining seats on a 50-50 formula. This is under this formula that last general elections were contested in Bihar as NDA. According to this formula, LJP gets 10 to 15 seats while 3 to 4 seats go to Jiten Ram Manjhi's Hindustan Awam Morcha. The remaining 224 to 230 assembly seats were contested by BJP and JDU in a 50-50 seat-sharing formula, which means BJP and JDU contested on 112 to 115 seats.

In this way, the formula is formed according to BJP
BJP 112-115
JDU- 112-115
LJP - 10-15
HAM - 3

The JDU formula
JDU contested on 122 seats and gave 3-4 assembly seats to the Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) i.e. Jitan Ram Manjhi Party from its quota. The BJP contested on 121 seats and gave the Lok Sabha seats to the Lok Janshakti Party from its quota. Based on this the JDU's proposed formula looks like this. 

BJP- 106- 111
JDU- 118-119
LJP - 10-15
HAM - 3-4

The LJP formula

LJP wants to get an assembly seat-sharing formula on the basis of parliamentary seats it contested during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. LJP contesting seven Lok Sabha seats and if the average is taken to six assembly seats per parliamentary seat, then LJP gets 42 seats to contest. LJP is claiming that since it had won six Lok sabha seats, it should be given at least 36 assembly seats to contest on in the NDA seat-sharing formula. 

BJP 101
JDU-100
LJP- 36
HAM - 6