Top BJP leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J P Nadda, held a meeting with Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan on Thursday to thrash out a seat-sharing arrangement with allies for the Bihar assembly polls.
Paswan, LJP sources said, listed his grievances with Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar and spoke of pressure from within his party to contest on 143 seats in the elections to the 243-seat assembly at the meeting here.
"No seat-sharing deal was finalised at the meeting," an LJP leader said, adding that Shah noted that the BJP has had no differences with the LJP. The presence of Shah at a meeting of BJP leaders on the Bihar polls on Wednesday and now his meeting with Paswan underscored his effort to settle the internal differences within the ruling National Democratic Alliance amicably.
BJP sources said the party's Central Election Committee is likely to meet either on Saturday or Sunday to finalise its candidates for the three-phase polls. The nomination process for the first phase, under which 71 of the total 243 seats will go to polls, began from Thursday and will end on October 8.
The NDA partners are expected to announce a seat-sharing arrangement in a day or two. The Chirag Paswan-headed LJP has indicated it will fight on 143 seats if it does not get a "honourable" deal from its allies. It has said it will not contest on seats where the BJP will fight.
In 2015, it contested 42 seats and won two. The JD(U) was then part of the opposition alliance which decisively defeated the NDA.
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