For the first time in 20 years, ‘bade bhaiya’ (big brother) Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and India’s largest political party, BJP, will contest an equal number of seats.
The ruling NDA on Sunday announced its seat-sharing formula for next month’s high-stakes Bihar Assembly elections and there are some BIG surprises!
Of Bihar’s 243 assembly seats, JD(U) and BJP will contest 101 seats each. Importantly, the incumbent Nitish Kumar is once again the undisputed choice for Chief Minister.
Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vikas) are also big winners. The LJP (RV) will contest an impressive 29 seats, making them the third biggest ally in the NDA. Remember, Chirag’s party had contested the 2020 elections independently.
Chirag is said to have leveraged the party’s strong performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It had won all 5 seats it contested and secured over 6% of the total vote share.
Meanwhile, Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) will contest 6 seats each.
Despite rumblings that Manjhi was unhappy about the final number of seats, he told reporters that the HAM has “accepted the decision of the high command”.
Kushwaha, though, made his feelings clear. Following the announcement, in a late-night post on X, Kushwaha sought his party workers’ forgiveness for not getting the expected number of seats.
Consequently, there seems to be no room for former NDA ally Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) to return to the fold.
With this announcement, the NDA has taken big strides in its efforts to retain the Bihar throne.
The opposition’s Mahagathbandhan, on the other hand, can’t seem to agree on its own seat-sharing formula. Something that the NDA was quite keen to highlight during its announcement. Reports suggest that the Mahagathbandhan is likely to finalise the same in the next few days and may even announce its candidates along with a joint manifesto this week.
