NDA, INDIA Bloc face Music in Bihar
Harish Gupta
In Bihar, all three major parties — RJD, BJP and JD(U) — are under pressure from their smaller allies, who have begun flexing their muscles. These smaller parties are raising their demands for more seats as they think that the responsibility to keep the alliances intact is with them.
Even today, Union Minister and LJP Chief Chirag Paswan fired yet another warning shot towards the ruling BJP-JDU alliance saying that he is like “salt on vegetables" and could affect 20,000 to 25,000 votes in every constituency. The LJP is largest within the NDA of the three such allies: Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha, LJP (Ram Vilas), and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha. In the last polls, Chirag fought alone, while Kushwaha floated his own front with AIMIM and BSP. Manjhi stayed with the NDA, contested seven seats and won four. This time, Manjhi is demanding 15–20 seats, threatening to field candidates on 50–100 seats if denied. Chirag is demanding 40 seats and refusing to settle for less than 30. Kushwaha has not spelt out his number yet but wants nothing less than eight seats.
On the INDIA bloc side, apart from RJD, there are Congress, three Left parties, and Mukesh Sahni’s VIP and Pashupati Paras’ faction of LJP and Hemant Soren’s JMM. The Congress wants 70 seats, Sahni has demanded 60 seats. Among the Left, CPI and CPM are flexible, but CPI(ML) wants 40 seats; last time it got 19. The buzz is that RJD is using Sahni’s demands as leverage to keep Congress in check.
