Bihar polls: Dharmendra Pradhan holds seat-sharing talks with Chirag Paswan

New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) Senior BJP leaders including the party's Bihar polls in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan held talks with Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president Chirag Paswan on Tuesday over the regional party's share of seats in the state elections amid competing claims from their various allies.

Besides the number of seats Paswan has sought, his party is keen on certain constituencies seen to be friendlier to his party's prospects and has asked for being allotted a couple of assembly seats in each of the five Lok Sabha constituencies it had won in 2024, sources have said.

Pradhan was accompanied by BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde, who is the party's organisational in-charge for Bihar, and Mangal Pandey, a minister in the state government.

Paswan's party has pointed out that the last time it contested the assembly elections as part of the BJP-led NDA in 2015, it was given 43 seats to contest in the 243-member assembly. The JD(U) was then not part of the alliance.

It had walked out of the NDA in 2020 due to its differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and had ended up seriously damaging the JD(U), even though it could win only one of the over 135 seats it had contested.

Apart from Union minister Paswan, other BJP allies are Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha besides Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), which enjoys parity with the BJP in the ruling coalition in Bihar in terms of seats.

Pradhan had earlier met other allies during his recent visit to Bihar.

The Election Commission had on Monday announced the schedule of the assembly election in Bihar. Polling will be held on November 6 and 11, and the counting of votes on November 14, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had said.

Neither the NDA nor the opposition grand alliance has so far announced seat-sharing arrangements with their allies. PTI KR KR KSS KSS