No Poll Tickets For Those Who Deserted Us Earlier, Ally Tells BJP in Bihar

NDA allies like the LJP have asked the BJP to finalise seat-sharing arrangement for Bihar elections within a week.

Patna, Bihar:  The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has asked the BJP not to give tickets to those rebel legislators who had deserted their party in the past to join Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU), in the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar.

Many of those leaders are now JDU rebel legislators, who have either joined the BJP, or are planning to join former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), another NDA ally, in the hope of contesting the elections.

“Chirag Paswan has told BJP chief Amit Shah to keep such leaders out of the National Democratic Alliance and not give them tickets to contest the assembly polls either as candidates of the BJP or its allies,” said a senior LJP leader to IANS.

The LJP has strong reservations about former lawmaker Sabir Ali, who joined the BJP in July, and former minister Narendra Singh and his two sons, considered close to Mr Manjhi.

An LJP leader said, “The LJP has informed the BJP’s top leadership that Narendra Singh and his two sons should not contest polls as NDA candidates as they plan to contest on HAM tickets.”

Sources say that LJP plans to put up their own candidates against these leaders if the BJP decides to give them tickets.

Earlier this week, NDA allies like the LJP and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) gave an ultimatum to the BJP to finalise seat-sharing arrangement within a week.

According to sources, BJP plans to contest 170 of the 243 seats, while the LJP and RLSP want BJP to contest 102 seats and leave the remaining 141 for its three allies.

On the other hand, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the JDU have decided to contest 100 seats each, leaving 40 to the Congress and three to the Nationalist Congress Party.