"Honourable agreement" reached with BJP on seat sharing: Nitish Kumar

September 16, 2018 16:26

A couple of weeks after his party expressed unhappiness with the BJP's proposed formula for seat sharing in Bihar for the 2019 general elections, Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar today said an "honourable agreement" had been reached with the BJP.

"Honourable agreement has been reached with the BJP on seat sharing. A formal announcement will be made later," the Bihar chief minister said in Patna today.

According to the BJP's first draft of the plan, that was reported last month, it would have contested in 20 of the 40 seats in Bihar; the party along with allies holds 31 seats. 12 seats would have gone to the JD-U, six to Ram Vilas Paswan and two to Upendra Kushwaha.

The JD-U had at the time said the plan was neither fair nor "honourable".

"Even BJP knows it is not acceptable," a JD-U leader had said and added that ideally, there should be equitable distribution between the two parties. Each should get 17 seats, and Ram Vilas Paswan, the leader said, should get the remaining six.

In 2014, the BJP had won 22 seats and the NDA 31. The JD-U, fresh from a break-up with the BJP after a 17-year alliance, won only two seats. While Nitish Kumar went on to partner with the Congress and Lalu Yadav's party and won the state elections in 2015, he was back in the BJP fold barely 20 months later.

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