After the JD(U) led secular alliance it is now the turn of the BJP to face heat over seat sharing among its allies for the crucial Bihar assembly polls.
The National Democratic Alliance appears to be heading for a hard bargain with its allies.
The BJP has set a target of 185 seats for the NDA in the 243-member state Assembly. But one of its allies – the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) headed by Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha wants the BJP to keep not more than 102 seats.
“The BJP had contested 102 seats in the 2010 Assembly polls,” Kushwaha said. “Our party has always said that it should fight from the same number of seats and leave the others for its allies.”
The LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan also wants a respectable number of seats and so does the Hindustani Awam Morcha led by Jitan Ram Manjhi.
BJP chief Amit Shah, who was in Patna, held a meeting with the party leaders to discuss the strategy and gauge mood of party men. He seemed to be in a hurry to finalise the contentious issue of seat sharing with Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP), Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).