Rift in NDA over seat-sharing resurfaces ahead of Bihar polls

The ongoing tussle within the NDA over seat sharing between Nitish Kumar and Chirag Paswan came to the fore once again on Sunday as Arun Bharti, Chirag Paswan’s brother-in-law and Bihar in-charge of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), highlighted his party’s strong claim for the upcoming Assembly elections in Bihar and also issued a warning by evoking memories of the 2020 elections.

In a post on social media platform X, Bharti claimed that only the LJP (R) has the capacity to contest all 243 seats in Bihar. “The workers are the real backbone of our party. It is a natural expectation of workers who toil tirelessly for the party that one day they too would get the opportunity to serve the people as public representatives from the party’s platform,” he wrote.

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“In 2020, when we couldn’t fulfill these expectations due to alliance obligations, we made the bold decision to contest alone. This wasn’t just about electoral politics, it was a mark of respect toward the emotions of our workers,” he added.

In the 2020 Assembly elections, Chirag Paswan went solo, parting ways with the NDA in opposition to Nitish Kumar. His party fielded candidates from 137 seats, mostly from JD(U)’s share. However, the results did not go in favour of Chirag. Of the 135 seats, the party won only one, stood second on nine seats, and secured a total vote share of 5.64%. The party’s lone MLA joined the JD(U) later.

Bharti went on: “Even though we won just one seat in that election, the truth is we contested 137 seats and secured 6% of the vote. Had we contested all 243 seats, our vote share would have crossed 10%. This was living proof of our workers’ strength and the people’s trust.”

So far, there has been no formal understanding on seat sharing among the alliance partners in the NDA. As both the BJP and JD(U) are likely to contest on at least 100 seats each, only 43 seats will be left to be divided among the remaining three parties led by Chirag Paswan, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha. The NDA cannot afford to ignore either of them.

Senior JD(U) leader KC Tyagi recently told the media that the JD(U) has been with the BJP for the past two decades and there has been no dispute between them regarding seat-sharing. The seat adjustments between Chirag Paswan’s LJP (R), Jitan Ram Manjhi Hindustani Awam Morcha, and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM are internal matters of the BJP.

Arun Bharti and KC Tyagi’s statements reflect the ongoing cold war between Nitish Kumar and Chirag Paswan which does not seem to end in 2025.