'Homebound' Chirag’s ambitions, seat demands stir trouble in Bihar NDA

Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) or LJP-RV chief Chirag Paswan may never tire of calling himself Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Hanuman”, but the political leap he now wishes to take in the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls has sent his allies in the state’s ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, the BJP included, in a tizzy.

In a hurry to cash in on the gains his party made in last year’s Lok Sabha polls, when it won all five seats it contested in the state, Chirag has been steadfast in his demand for the LJP-RV being allocated at least 40 seats within the NDA’s seat-sharing formula for the impending Assembly polls.

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Quest for state role

For good measure, the Hajipur MP, who has been on a whirlwind pan-Bihar tour addressing Nav Sankalp (new resolve) rallies for the past one month, has also expressed an eagerness to contest the upcoming polls — a move that would effectively see him transition to state politics from the national stage.

Taking a veiled swipe at Chirag, a HAMS MLA said, “Those calling themselves Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hanuman today were trying to get NDA candidates defeated in the 2020 elections… these people should realise that they do not have a monopoly on Bihar or on Dalits.”

Chirag’s insistence on a larger share of seats being allotted to his LJP-RV and his desire to make an Assembly poll debut have, thus far, been seen in Bihar’s political circles as a tacit ploy, backed by the BJP, to keep Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) on a tight leash ahead of the polls.

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This impression, however, seems to be gradually changing now with the LJP-RV also staking claim to certain seats where the BJP currently has its MLAs, sources in the NDA have told The Federal.

Chirag riles up NDA allies

Additionally, Chirag’s refusal to withdraw his party’s claim from constituencies where it had either finished second in the 2020 Assembly polls, when it had severed ties with the NDA in Bihar and gone solo to massively dent the JD(U)’s victory tally, or registered substantial leads during last year’s Lok Sabha polls, has unsettled not just the JD(U) but also a section of the state’s BJP leadership as well as Union Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) or HAMS chief Jitan Ram Manjhi.

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Sources in the NDA also say that Chirag’s hard bargaining is among the prime reasons delaying the ruling coalition’s finalisation of seat-sharing agreement between allies BJP, JD(U), LJP-RV, HAMS, and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM). A meeting of the alliance partners to break the impasse is now expected to take place on September 28, they revealed, adding that backchannel attempts will be made in the meantime to find an agreeable middle ground.

JD(U)'s demand makes matter tricky

Another key stumbling block for the ruling coalition, it is learned, has been the JD(U)’s insistence on contesting “as many, if not a few more, seats than the BJP”, which is currently the senior partner in the alliance per its legislative strength in the Bihar Assembly despite not occupying the chief minister’s chair.

Sources said the BJP and JD(U) had “broadly agreed” to contest 100 seats each, leaving the remaining 43 seats to be divided between the LJP-RV, HAMS, and RLM.

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Lesser allies also seek 'respectable share'

This arithmetic, however, has now been disturbed by Chirag’s unwavering stance. Furthermore, Manjhi and Kushwaha, too, are now demanding a “respectable share” of the sie pie for their respective parties.

Manjhi, a Dalit leader like Chirag and a former chief minister of Bihar, is unwilling to settle for less than 10 seats, said sources in the HAMS.

“In 2020, we had agreed to contest seven seats as part of the alliance and had won four of them. Over the past five years, our footprint has grown, and even Manjhiji has been saying that we need to think about expanding nationally, but for that to happen, we have to first expand in Bihar,” said HAMS’s Sikandra MLA Prafull Manjhi.

Also read: Bihar: Chirag Paswan’s move to contest assembly polls sign of bigger ambitions

Taking a veiled swipe at Chirag, he said, “Those calling themselves Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hanuman today were trying to get NDA candidates defeated in the 2020 elections; even in my constituency a (LJP-RV) candidate was put up but he could not even save his deposit… these people should realise that they do not have a monopoly on Bihar or on Dalits.”

LJP-RV digs in heels

Chirag’s party, however, has its own arguments for demanding a larger share of seats. “The grassroots hold of our party, our organisational strength, and the growing trust of the people in Chirag’s leadership prove that confining our party to limited seats is not only wrong, but also an insult to the people's trust. The LJP-RV will play a decisive role in the upcoming elections, and we are confident that we will get a respectable place within the alliance,” Chirag’s brother-in-law and Jamui MP Arun Bharti said.

Sources in the NDA said Chirag’s hard bargaining is among the prime reasons delaying the ruling coalition’s finalisation of its seat-sharing agreement between the BJP, JD(U), LJP-RV, HAMS and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM). A meeting of the alliance partners to break the impasse is now expected to take place on September 28.

Though asserting that “it is very clear that Nitish Kumar is leading the NDA’s campaign in Bihar,” Bharti added, “This election is also about laying the foundation for Bihar’s future and it is towards that goal of Bihar First, Bihari First that Chirag and our party is working; the whole message of our ongoing Nav Sankalp Mahasabhas across the state is that we have to work towards this ‘nav sankalp’ (new resolve) with ‘nav naitritva’ (new leadership)”.

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While Bharti refused to divulge the number of seats that his party is eying to contest, an LJP-RV leader considered close to Chirag told The Federal, “The JD(U) has 12 MPs (in the Lok Sabha) and is demanding 100 seats. By their own logic, we should get around 50 seats because we have five MPs.”

'LS, Assembly seat maths not same'

NDA leaders, however, concede that dividing Assembly seats amongst themselves strictly on the basis of the bench strength of each party in the Lok Sabha is “simply not possible”. Kushwaha’s RLM, for instance, has no MP in the Lok Sabha, but alliance leaders say his party has to be accommodated in the state polls because of caste factors.

Likewise, a senior BJP MP from the state told The Federal, “it is absurd for some parties to ask for a bulk of the Assembly seats that fall within the Lok Sabha seats they currently occupy merely because their party had led in these segments during the Lok Sabha polls… should we not see how these parties performed in these seats during the Assembly elections? There are Assembly seats where the LJP-RV or the HAMS led during the Lok Sabha polls, but in the Assembly elections, they failed to even finish second runner-up in these very constituencies.”

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The JD(U), a senior party leader said, is willing to offer seats to Manjhi’s HAMS from its own quota as long as the BJP is fine with giving seats to Chirag and Kushwaha from its own quota “because both of them were roped in by the BJP.”

It is not difficult to fathom why the JD(U)’s proposition is “unacceptable” to the BJP. A senior BJP minister in the Bihar government, said, “We were the larger party when Nitish returned to our alliance but we still gave him the CM’s chair and we are still saying that we are going into the elections under his leadership and are willing to give him the same number of seats that we will contest even though neither Nitish nor the JD(U) today are what they used to be 10 years ago. It is in everyone’s interest to be reasonable, set aside ego and personal ambition, and agree to a formula that is beneficial for the alliance at large.”

LJP-RV eyes BJP seats too

What has also riled a section of BJP leaders in Bihar is Chirag making a play for constituencies that are currently represented by the saffron party’s legislators. For instance, the LJP-RV wants the Govindganj seat in East Champaran to be given to its Bihar state president, Raju Tiwari. He had won the seat in 2015 but finished a distant third when he sought re-election in 2020. The constituency is currently represented by the BJP’s Sunil Mani Tiwari, whom the LJP-RV now wants benched.

Also read: Congress must be realistic, RJD accommodative in seat-sharing in Bihar polls: Dipankar

Similarly, there are nine seats spread across Purnea, Katihar, Buxar, Siwan, Rohtas, Aurangabad, Nalanda and Bhojpur districts, where the LJP had finished second in 2020, which Chirag now wants allotted to his party, in addition to the Matihani seat in Begusarai district that the LJP had won in 2020.

These are aside from the 30-odd Assembly constituencies where the LJP-RV had been instrumental in the defeat of JD(U) candidates during the last Assembly polls, and which Chirag is now demanding for his party. The Union minister also wants the BJP to concede at least some of its ‘sitting seats’ spread across the five Lok Sabha constituencies won by his party last year.

Has Chirag already picked candidates?

Sources close to Chirag told The Federal that the parliamentary board of the LJP-RV, which met in Patna on Tuesday (September 23), has already finalised a list of potential candidates for the seats the party is determined to contest. There was, however, no decision taken at the meeting on the seat that Chirag must contest from, should he come good on his claim of fighting the upcoming polls.

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“Our party and its workers want Chirag to contest,” a member of the LJP-RV’s parliamentary board told The Federal, adding that talks were still on within the party on whether Chirag should contest from a reserved seat (Scheduled Castes) or pick a general-category seat to prove his acceptability among a cross-section of voters in a state known for its deeply entrenched caste affiliations. Sources said various constituencies across Jamui, Vaishali, Hajipur, Arrah and even Jitan Ram Manjhi’s home district of Gaya have been identified for Chirag’s Assembly poll debut.

The big question that remains unanswered is whether the state-ward leap that Chirag wants to make from New Delhi would really land him in Patna’s power corridors or end up upending the tricky coalition arithmetic that his NDA colleagues are trying to perfect, ahead of a visibly difficult election against a belligerent Opposition in the Grand Alliance.