NEW DELHI: An equal share for BJP and JD(U) — 101 seats each — and a generous 29 for Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) are the highlights of the seat-sharing agreement among NDA partners announced Sunday for Bihar assembly elections. The rest 12 out of 243 seats have been equally split among Union minister and Dalit neta Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM.This is the first time BJP and JD(U) are contesting an equal number of seats. While this reflects the growing assertiveness of the former, which has expanded its influence in the state and an acknowledgment of the same by JD(U), BJP’s central brass didn’t agree to the insistence of a strong section in its state unit that it claim the first-among-the equal status by fighting more seats than Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).

Chirag emerges big winner in NDA pact In the Lok Sabha polls, BJP had contested one seat more. In practical terms, the difference came to two, considering that JDU’s share included the “hard-to-win” Muslim-majority Kishanganj LS seat. JDU, which had since 2004 consistently contested more seats than BJP, reciprocated the gesture by dropping its demand, driven by the anxiety not to lose the “big brother” bragging rights it had grabbed under Nitish’s CMship, that it be allowed to contest at least one more seat than BJP. Union minister Chirag has emerged as the big winner, with BJP and JDU showing an indulgence they did not extend to him five years ago. An indignant LJP leader identified JDU’s recalcitrance as the chief villain and retaliated by going it alone, with the intent to hurt Nitish. As per independent estimates, he, with his committed flock of Paswans, who account for 5% of the population, caused JDU 33 seats. BJP did not escape unsinged either, losing six seats. The tally of 29 is commensurate to the five Lok Sabha seats it won in last year’s parliamentary elections and the same that the party won under late Ramvilas Paswan in the 2005 assembly polls, its best-ever showing. Though Chirag had started by asking for 49 seats, seasoned observers felt that the maximalist demand was a bargaining chip and that he would be happy with 25. HAM was not that lucky. It had asked for 15, but got six, which is one less than its 2020 share. RLM — whose leader Upendra Kushwaha has been accommodated in Rajya Sabha after his defeat in the LS polls — has got the same number. There was speculation that the two would be compensated in some form at a later date.