JP Nadda to meet top Bihar BJP leaders over election strategy, seat sharing
Sep 30, 2020
New Delhi [India], September 30 : BJP national president JP Nadda will meet with top party leaders from Bihar today over the strategy for the upcoming assembly elections and to discuss seat-sharing.
The meeting between Nadda and other leaders from Bihar will be held at the party's office in New Delhi.
Earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister, and BJP leader, Sushil Kumar Modi left Patna for Delhi.
State Health Minister, Mangal Pandey, was also seen at the Patna airport earlier this morning where he had arrived to catch a flight to the national capital.
The meeting has been called as confusion exists in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over seat-sharing.
While the BJP had earlier said that it will fight the elections under the leadership of Janata Dal (United) leader and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), another NDA ally, has been demanding a larger number of seats.
Further, in a fresh development in the poll-bound state, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) national general secretary Anand Madhav resigned from the party today. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav had earlier yesterday met Madhav late night. The RLSP leader's resignation followed this meeting.
Meanwhile, the Congress had also called its Bihar unit chief Madan Mohan Jha and CLP leader Sadanand Singh to Delhi on Wednesday, amid seat-sharing discussions with the RJD and other allies.
The RJD-Congress-Left alliance is holding final rounds of seat-sharing talks for the Bihar assembly elections and an announcement is likely to be made later this week.
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 the 2015 assembly polls, JD-U, RJD, and Congress had fought the elections together under the Mahagathbandhan banner. On the other hand, the BJP-led NDA had fought the elections with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and other allies.
RJD with 80 seats had emerged as the single largest party in the elections, followed by JD-U (71), and BJP (53). However, BJP got the largest vote share (24.42 percent), followed by RJD with 18.35 percent and JD-U (16.83 percent).
Differences later emerged between the RJD and JD-U, resulting in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar returning to the NDA.
