Rashtriya Lok Samata Party president Upendra Kushwaha has set a November 30 deadline for the BJP to offer it a “respectable” number of seats to contest on in the Lok Sabha elections amid speculation that the Union Minister might announce a walkout from the NDA during the party’s December 5 meeting. On Saturday, Kushwaha made it clear that the number of seats offered to the RLSP, during a meet with BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav, was “not acceptable” to the party. The BJP has reportedly offered two seats to its ally, while, top RLSP sources said, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has offered it five seats. Talking to reporters after the RLSP’s national executive, Kushwaha also said he would not make any move from his side to approach any BJP leader to discuss the issue of seat-sharing, except Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “BJP president Amit Shah had assured me of talking about seat-sharing. I tried to meet him twice recently, but did not get his time. Now, I will not try to meet any BJP leader except the PM. I want to stay with NDA, but there is a group within Bihar NDA which does not want to see Narendra Modi as PM again and has been misguiding him on us (RLSP),” he said. Kushwaha also accused the Bihar CM of trying to “poach” his MLAs.
