Patna: Bharatiya Janata Party has made up its mind on contesting 170 of the 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly elections, leaving only 73 for its three National Democratic Alliance partners. While the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan has been offered 35 seats, Upendra Kushwaha led Rashtriya Lok Samata Party has got 20 and 18 have been left for former Bihar chief minister Jitam Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha.
With dates of five-phase elections announced and several of their leaders putting forward their candidature; Paswan, Kushwaha and Manjhi met BJP's Bihar election in-charge Ananth Kumar separately in Delhi on Thursday and asked him to finalise seat sharing soon.
With the BJP leadership making it clear to its allies that the party will follow the formula of six seats for every constituency won in the 2014 Lok Sabha election in deciding the final number, there is very little bargaining room for Paswan, Kushwaha and Manjhi.
While the formal announcement will take place only after Bihar BJP leaders including its most prominent face Sushil Kumar Modi and state president Mangal Pandey meet the central leadership in Delhi on Friday evening, the party has decided not to concede too much to its allies.
BJP's strong stand has not gone down well with Paswan and Kushwaha, both of whom nurture the ambition of becoming Bihar's chief minister. Even though Kushwaha said that he had full faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, his party leaders in the state are not happy with just 20 seats.
Several RLSP leaders and ticket aspirants that IBNLive spoke to at the party office in Patna were of the view that Kushwaha should not accept less than 50 seats although many of them admitted that their chances of winning would increase if they fought the election in alliance with the BJP.
Similar views were echoed by LJP leaders who want more than 70 seats but categorically denied that they would create a Maharashtra like situation where the BJP and its oldest ally Shiv Sena broke up their partnership to contest the Assembly elections separately in 2014.
Manjhi has agreed to the seats offered as he does not have too many options although he could jump the ship if the results are not in favour of the NDA.
In fact the war of words between Paswan and Manjhi in the last few weeks, and their eagerness to be seen as the tallest Dalit/Mahadalit community leader has made BJP's task easier.
Although Paswan is a tried and tested vote catcher, the same cannot be said about Manjhi whose party is making its electoral debut.
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