The dispute among National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituent parties over seat sharing in Bihar came to an end on Saturday after a meeting presided by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) MP Chirag Paswan. According to reports, under the new agreement, LJP will now get an extra seat in the state of Uttar Pradesh or Jharkhand, plus a reserved Rajya Sabha seat for LJP chief and cabinet minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Earlier BJP President Amit Shah announced that out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, there will be an equal division of seats between BJP and JD(U). Both will fight on 17 seats each, while LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan will get 4 seats and 2 seats will be given to RLSP of Upendra Kushwaha.
LJP had raised the new demands after two seats of RLSP, fell vacant as Upendra Kushwaha decided to break from NDA and went on to join the congress led ‘Mahagathbandhan’, which disturbed the status quo. The concerns were resolved when Arun Jaitley intervened in the matter and all the concerned parties came to a new agreement. It is speculated that according to the new agreement, BJP will fight on 17 seats, while 18 seats will be reserved for JD(U) of Nitish Kumar and 5 seats for LJP. “We had a successful discussion and we are talking. We are confident of a positive outcome,” said Chirag Paswan coming out of the meeting with finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Tomorrow NDA will held a press conference for announcing the final seat-sharing equation of Bihar, in the presence of Mr. Shah, Mr. Kumar, LJP leaders Chirag Paswan and Pashupati Kumar Paras, brother of Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan and BJP general secretary Bhupendra Yadav.
SOURCES: BJP & LJP have settled at 5+1+1 seat sharing agreement in which the LJP will get 5 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, 1 in Jharkhand or UP and 1 Rajya Sabha seat. More details by @scribe_prashant pic.twitter.com/PpdvTSkNcI
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) December 22, 2018
BJP’s decision of offering a seat to LJP in UP (most probable scenario) could be a masterstroke considering the fact that Ram Vilas Paswan can be a prominent dalit face of the NDA against BSP chief Mayawati. Also, Ram Vilas Paswan is claimed to be a political wind vane (an instrument used to find the direction of wind), as the senior Paswan has never been in the opposition since may be the beginning of time. In his political career of more than 40 years, Mr. Paswan has only once been defeated in the general elections of 2009. But even then he went on to represent Hajipur (his constituency assembly) as a Member of Rajya Sabha.
The decision of Ram Vilas Paswan to stick to NDA also signifies the point that NDA is going to win the LOK Sabha election of 2019. Mr. Paswan is not the one to sit in a sinking ship and that can be gauged from the fact that he stuck with UPA for 10 long years and right before 2019, switched to the NDA.
Paswan simply cannot be kept in an alliance if he is not sure of winning. Number of seats offered matter only when Paswan is sure about the winnability of the alliance. Ram Vilas Paswan is a living walking opinion poll, which has never went wrong.
This also negates the claims of some political pundits that the BJP is a lone wolf, who can’t play well with other political parties in an alliance. Unlike the Congress party, BJP doesn’t form opportunistic alliances based on any agenda. The recent break up of Mahakutami in Telangana and Akhilesh Yadav abandoning Rahul Gandhi after assembly election of Uttar Pradesh are few of such examples. Reports also suggest that the BJP agreed on giving an extra Lok Sabha seat to JD(U) of Nitish Kumar in Bihar.
