NITISH’S GAIN FROM ‘STATUE OF UNITY’: A DEAL WITH BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party is believed to have succumbed to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar''s pressure to yield his Janata Dal(U) 16 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

BJP President Amit Shah wanted the seat-sharing issue put off to December until after the Assembly elections since the Lok Sabha elections are still six months away, but Nitish insisted on the decision now.

In a meeting with Shah here, Nitish bluntly refused to attend the inauguration of Sardar Patel''s statue in Gujarat on October 31 unless he gets the respectable seat share for his JD(U) and threatened to even announce candidates for all 40 seats.

The JD(U) sources say the strategy adopted by Nitish at the instance of party vicepresident Prashant Kishor worked as the BJP did not want a wrong message to go, particularly in the upcoming Assembly elections in five states, if Nitish abstains from the grand function being organised by Prime Minister Modi for inauguration of the tallest statue of Sardar Patel. Prashant, a poll strategist, had told Nitish that the BJP may ignore JD(U) if it scores well in the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in which it is in power.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the JD(U) had won only two seats while contesting in alliance with Lalu Yadav''s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and NCP as against 22 won by the BJP and this was repeatedly referred by Amit Shah to deny an equal number of seats Nitish Kumar has been demanding.

Just to win over him for the Sardar Patel statue inauguration ceremony, which will be attended by all BJP and NDA chief minister, Amit Shah agreed to sacrifice five seats and contest for only 17 seats in Bihar while the BJP''s two allies – Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) of union minister Upendra Kushwaha – give their one seat each to the JD(U) to let the JD(U) have the respectable 16 seats to contest.

Earlier the BJP was insisting on contesting at least 20 seats and leaving the remaining 20 to be divided among JD(U), LJP and RLSP.

In the new line-up, the BJP will contest for 17 seats, JD(U) 16, LJP 5 and RLSP 2. Kushwaha is, however, not happy with Amit Shah''s deal on his back and there should be no surprise if he breaks away to field own RLSP candidates on five or six seats.