Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar on Monday said his party's seat-sharing with the BJP would be done soon after a proposal on this came from that party in three-four weeks.
“But, nothing has been done on it now…there will be one-to-one talk with the BJP on this issue”, he told journalists on the sidelines of his weekly Lok Samvad (people’s interaction) programme in Patna.
Party insiders told The Hindu that the JD(U) would get at least 12 out of the total 40 parliamentary seats in the State in the seat-sharing formulae with the BJP.
RLSP's stand
On Sunday, Upendra Kushwaha, chief of another alliance partner of the BJP, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), said that “unless all alliance party leaders sit together, seat-sharing among the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents will not be done”.
The RLSP, said NDA insiders, was likely to get two seats now. In the 2014 general election, the party won all the three seats it got. However one of its party MPs from Jehanabad, Arun Kumar, later rebelled against Mr. Kushwaha and is likely to be accommodated in the BJP quota of seats this time.
Special status for Bihar
Mr. Kumar said the special status grant for Bihar had been an old demand and “Bihar must be accorded special status as it is a land-locked State”.
“We will raise this demand again at [sic] the all-party meeting”, he said. “Earlier too, we had sought time from former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for this but he had not given us time.We’ve come to know that all parties of Bihar have given their consent for the demand of special status grant to Bihar”, he said.
