Bihar polls: NDA meet today to end seat sharing deadlock as Manjhi refuses to budge from demand for more seats

New Delhi: After hitting a deadlock on Saturday, the National Democratic Alliance will meet again to finalise the seat sharing issue for Bihar Assembly elections. The announcement on seat sharing, which was supposed to be made on Saturday, was delayed as Hindustani Avam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi expressed his displeasure over the 15 seats given to him by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Manjhi is demanding 5 more seats claiming to be the tallest Mahadalit leader in the state. However, the demand hasn't gone down well with the BJP. According to sources top BJP leaders objected to the same at the party's core group meeting.

A HAM spokesman said they would not accept a single seat less than that offered to LJP. "We would not take seats less in number than that given to LJP," the spokesman said, adding that they will wait till Sunday for BJP to offer a "respectable" number of seats to HAM.

"We will have to reconsider alliance with BJP if the party is not given respectable number of seats," the spokesman Danish Rizwan said.

While BJP plans to contest on around 160 seats out of a total of 243 seats, RLSP is being offered 25 seats while Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party around 40, it is learnt.

Despite the differences, leaders claimed that all was well within the alliance and efforts are on to convince Manjhi.

"There are some problems in every party. There is nothing to worry about everything will be sorted out," BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said. He also added that there is a 'Modi wave' in Bihar. "People in the state want development and not jungle raj in the state," he said.

According to sources, Manjhi on Saturday met BJP President Amit Shah at the latter's residence twice and held seat-sharing talks.

Rashtriya Lok Samata Party's (RLSP) Upendra Kushwaha, also an ally of NDA, also met Shah on Saturday and later said he has authorised Shah to finalize seat-sharing.

Seat-sharing talks among NDA allies started since Saturday morning and continued till late at night at Amit Shah's residence. After Manjhi's disapproval over seats offered to him, BJP Bihar core group held its meeting late in the evening to discuss seat-sharing.

Union Minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan had earlier met Amit Shah along with his son Chirag Paswan and authorised Shah to declare the seat-sharing arrangement. Sources close to him said the deal with his outfit has been finalised and there is no confusion over it.

BJP has not declared its chief ministerial candidate and the alliance is contesting the polls with development as its main issue and is contesting under Narendra Modi's face.