Big blow to NDA alliance in Bihar: RLJP seeks five seats, or “ready to go anywhere”

In a recent development in the seat-sharing deal in Bihar, the LJP and BJP have settled for an arrangement in Bihar.

Digital Desk: Amid the seat-sharing arithmetic of the ruling BJP and after releasing two candidate lists, Bihar’s NDA alliance is facing challenges as the coalition partner Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) seeks five seats that they currently hold in the Lok Sabha.

Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party president and union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras has released a statement that his party is negotiating with the BJP and they are expecting good results, however, if their sitting MPs are not given their seats back, then they will go solo.

"...We had a meeting of our Parliamentary Board today. The members have decided that unless all the BJP's lists (of candidates) are released, we urge their national president, prime minister, and home minister to consider all five of our MPs. We will await the list. After the announcement, if we are not given due respect, our party is independent, and our doors are open. We will be ready to go anywhere," the RLJP president says, as quoted by ANI.

RLJP is a fraction of Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which separated in 2021. Pashupati’s RLJP currently has five MPs in Lok Sabha, and they demand the alliance partner give them back the constituencies.

In a recent development in the seat-sharing deal in Bihar, the LJP and BJP have settled for an arrangement in Bihar. Chirag Paswan-led LJP will get five seats, including Hajipur. The arrangement’s effect came the day after Pashupati Kumar Paras of RLJP issued the statement. 

LJP and RLJP, being separated from the same party, joined the NDA government, and the RLJP president even held union ministry in the BJP-led government.