BJP seals the deal with LJP after six-seat offer

NEWDELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sealed a deal with its ally, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), for the 2019 parliamentary election with an offer for six Lok Sabha seats and one Rajya Sabha seat, two leaders familiar with negotiations between the two sides said.

Of the six parliamentary seats, Ram Vilas Paswan’s party will get five in Bihar and another in Uttar Pradesh or Jharkhand.

Paswan, a 72-year-old socialist veteran, is a nine-term Lok Sabha member and wants to move to Parliament’s Upper House on health grounds. The Rajya Sabha seat will go to him, both leaders cited above confirmed. Neither wished to be identified.

BJP chief Amit Shah and LJP’S parliamentary board chairman Chirag Paswan are likely to announce the arrangement at a press conference on Saturday. On Wednesday, the LJP asked the BJP to finalise the seat sharing arrangement by December 31. The Friday deal comes at the end of the week which saw LJP leaders, including Chirag Paswan, airing their seeming dissatisfaction and the BJP scrambling to assuage its ally.

Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag met finance minister Arun Jaitley in his parliament complex office in the morning to conclude seat distribution talks, which remained incomplete after a Thursday evening meeting at the residence of Shah.

“Talks are on, we will disclose details at a later date,” Chirag Paswan, 35, said after meeting Jaitley. He left for Mumbai later in the evening. Another LJP leader, Ramchandra Paswan, said, “We are still with the BJP. We aren’t yet considering leaving the alliance. We shall announce a seat sharing formula with the BJP.”

The LJP is the only smaller ally left in Bihar for the Bjp-led National Democratic Alliance after the exit of Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party over seat sharing.

Earlier this week, Chirag Paswan warned the BJP that it must treat allies “with respect” pointing out that it has lost partners such as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh and Kushwaha. The RLSP has since joined the Mahagatbandhan, or grand alliance, of the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar. A BJP leader, who did not wish to be identified, said the deal has been finalised in a “cordial” manner and expressed hope that the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar – third partner of NDA in Bihar – will remain on board.

In November, Shah announced in the presence of Kumar that the two parties will contest an equal number of seats in Bihar. But, five seats for Paswan leaves the BJP and the JD(U) to share 35 seats between them.

Leaders in the BJP and the JD(U) remained tightlipped on how they will share these 35 seats between them. “We would like to contest 18 of these 35 seats, leaving rest 17 for the JD(U),” a BJP office bearer said on condition of anonymity. Another leader familiar with the discussion and who asked not to be identified said the JD(U) and the BJP may get 17 seats each, with the remaining seat going to 35-yearold Mukesh Sahni, an aspiring politician who is widely known as “son of mallah” in Bihar.