At a time when there is a stalemate over seat-sharing among NDA constituents in Bihar, Lok Janshakti Party leader and MP Chirag Paswan met Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar on Monday. “My meeting with the CM should only be seen as a courtesy visit in connection with the ‘Chhath’ (Sun god) festival,” he said.
Chirag Paswan said he would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election from Jamui (reserved) from where he was elected in the 2014 general elections. The buzz in political circles is that he will be fielded from Hajipur (reserved) parliamentary seat this time as his father Ram Vilas Paswan would be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Chirag Paswan had earlier said that his party would need seven seats in the Lok Sabha poll, the same number it had contested in 2014. It had then won six of them. However, sources in the BJP told The Hindu that the LJP this time had been offered only four seats, including the Rajya Sabha seat for Ram Vilas Paswan.
Mr. Kushwaha’s meeting with Mr. Yadav in New Delhi seemed to indicate that he would soon come out of the NDA and join the RJD-led Grand Alliance in Bihar. Mr. Kushwaha has expressed displeasure at Prashant Kishor meeting his two party MLAs on Sunday. “He [Nitish Kumar] has come down to destroy Upendra Kushwaha and his party. But he cannot cause any damage to me... he is a part of the NDA and so are we. He should not do such things,” he said.
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On Sunday, RLSP MLAs Sudhanshu Shekhar and Lallan Paswan had met Nitish Kumar’s Man Friday Prashant Kishor and were reportedly offered a ministerial berth and a Parliamentary seat. “Nitish Kumar should know that just as taking and demanding dowry is a crime, poaching MLAs is a crime too,” Mr. Kushwaha said.
Sources said the BJP had clearly told Mr. Kushwaha either to settle for two seats or choose his own way. But Mr. Kushwaha has been demanding “more than three seats.” In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, RLSP had contested in three seats and won all of them.