Three days before the crucial NDA meeting in Bihar to put up a united face, its ruling alliance partner Janata Dal (United) has asserted that party president and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would be the face of NDA in Bihar during upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
“Nitish Kumar will be the face of NDA in Bihar for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections”, said K.C. Tyagi, national general secretary and spokesperson of JD(U). Mr Tyagi along with another party national general secretary Pawan Verma, chief electoral strategist for JD(U) in 2015 assembly poll, Prashant Kishor and Mr. Kumar had a four hour-long meeting on Sunday at Mr Kumar’s official residence in Patna.
“Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is the face of the NDA in Bihar as he is the tallest leader and the BJP, LJP, RLSP will have to approach the LS poll under his leadership”, party leader Pavan Varma said. Party insiders told The Hindu that JD(U) would also press BJP for a seat-sharing arrangement for the parliamentary election in 2019 soon.
NDA partners suggest early seat sharing arrangement
Earlier, another NDA alliance partner Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) leader Upendra Kushwaha had also called for early settlement on the seat sharing arrangement along with its partners soon.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had spared seven seats to Lok Janshakti Party in which it won six while, it had left four seats to RLSP in which it had won three. The BJP had contested on 29 seats and won 22.
This time with JD(U) in alliance, the other alliance partners LJP and RLSP are said to be apprehensive of less seats coming into the bag to contest in 2019 LS poll.
Realising the swelling ground reality, the JD(U) too has started putting pressure on the big brother BJP to bag as more seats as it can for the 2019 parliamentary elections.