Bihar Elections: BJP's top brass meets at HM Amit Shah's residence

The top leadership of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a meeting on Saturday morning at Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s residence in Delhi over the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) situation for Bihar Assembly polls. The meeting was attended by BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda, party in-charge Bihar Bhupendra Yadav and in-charge for Bihar polls Devendra Fadnavis.

Yadav and Fadnavis returned to Delhi on Friday from Bihar after holding meetings with leaders of the BJP state unit. They were supposed to meet with Janata Dal (United) leaders in Patna but returned without meeting them.

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Earlier, top BJP leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah and JP Nadda, held a meeting with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Chirag Paswan on Thursday. The purpose of the meeting was to thrash out a seat-sharing arrangement with allies for the Bihar assembly polls. Sources have informed LJP may settle for 30 seats in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), however, nothing has been finalised yet.

According to the source, "LJP has become dim and will have to accept all the conditions of Nitish Kumar as cleared by top authorities of NDA." BJP has put some conditions for the alliance including the projection of Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister face of NDA. LJP was earlier demanding that Chirag Paswan should be the Chief Ministerial candidate and should fight on 143 seats.

In 2015, it contested 42 seats and won two. The JD(U) was then part of the opposition alliance which decisively defeated the NDA. The strained relations between the JD(U), headed by Kumar, and the LJP have put the alliance under pressure as BJP attempts to play a balancing role.

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Bihar assembly polls

Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases - October 28, November 3, and 7 and the counting of votes will take place on November 10. In 2015, the JD(U), RJD, and Congress had fought the elections together under the Mahagathbandhan banner. On the other hand, the BJP-led NDA contested the elections with LJP and other allies.

RJD had emerged as the single largest party in the elections with 80 seats, followed by JD(U) at 71, and BJP (53). However, BJP got the largest vote share of 24.42% followed by RJD with 18.35% and JD(U) 16.83 per cent. Later on, differences emerged between the RJD and JD(U), resulting in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s return to the NDA.

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(With inputs from agency)

(Image credits: PTI)