Amid talks of seat sharing between NDA alliance partners in Bihar, BJP national president J.P. Nadda on Saturday met Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar at his official residence.
Mr. Nadda also launched the party’s poll campaign “Atmanirbhar Bihar (self-reliant Bihar)” before leaving for Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga districts to meet people and local leaders.
Elections for the 243-member Bihar Assembly are due in October-November this year.
Significantly, soon after Mr. Nadda and Mr. Kumar met in Patna, president of NDA’s third alliance partner, the Lok Janshakti Party Chirag Paswan said in Delhi that he had no complaints or grudges against Mr. Kumar. He added that as a public representative from the State it was his duty to raise public issues before the Chief Minister.
“If I do share these with the the Chief Minister, then whom should I tell,” asked Mr. Chirag Paswan while speaking to a news channel.
He added that “his party will go with whatever decision the BJP takes regarding the Bihar elections”.
Relations between the JD(U) and LJP had soured of late after Mr. Chirag Paswan’s attacks on several issues, while JD(U) leaders had said “their party’s alliance has been with the BJP and not the LJP”.
Senior State level BJP leaders, including Dy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, party in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and State party president Sanjay Jaiswal accompanied Mr. Nadda at the meeting with Mr Kumar.
The closed-door meeting between the alliance partners went for over 40 minutes. Though they did not speak to the media after the meeting, party sources told The Hindu that seat sharing was the focus of the discussion.
Recently, former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) also joined the NDA after severing ties with the opposition mahagathbandhan.
“Both the principal alliance partners BJP and JD(U) may contest equal number of seats while the LJP may get around 20-22 and HAM(S) 4-5 seats to contest”, said a senior JD(U) leader.
Later, Mr. Nadda, on his two-day visit to Bihar, also launched party’s poll campaign and flagged off several vans, which are set to drive into various constituencies highlighting the BJP and its initiatives for the development of the State.
The vans had cut-outs fixed on them with photos of BJP leaders and slogans like “Jan jan ki pukar, atmanirbhar Bihar (people’s voice, self-reliant Bihar) and “BJP hai to Bharosa hai (confidence is there with BJP)” written on them.
Earlier on Friday, former Maharashtra chief minister and newly appointed Bihar in-charge of the party Devendra Fadnavis too was in Patna and inaugurated the party’s media center. “Only a government which can work along with PM Modi government at the Center can take Bihar forward…I hope Bihar will elect an NDA government in the coming elections to become atmanirbhar (self-reliant),” said Mr. Fadnavis.
On Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Mr. Fadnavis said, “this issue is connected with people’s emotion here and we’ll not stop until justice is done to the family and this is why we say na bhoolenge, na bhoolne denge (neither forget, nor will let others to forget)”.
RJD counter
Meanwhile, the Opposition RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav responded to the BJP’s “atmanirbhar Bihar” poll campaign and said, “The BJP itself should first become atmanirbhar (self-reliant) in Bihar…for last 24 years they have been relying on borrowed faces…and secondly, who had stopped them for last 15 years in power to make Bihar self-reliant?”
“They have double engine government but still the special package to Bihar is elusive…first they should provide central university status to Patna University,” he added.