Nitish gets 2, Chirag Paswan in talks as BJP announces seat sharing plan for Jharkhand

Jharkhand BJP election in-charge and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Monday said that ally All Jharkhand’s Student Union Party (AJSUP) will contest on between 9 and 11 seats, while Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) will contest two seats, and talks are ongoing with Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas).

“The seat sharing is almost final with the AJSU with one seat becoming a hurdle where either the BJP or the AJSU will compromise. AJSU will get between 9-11 seats. The JDU seats are final too, i.e. 2, unless some seats are negotiated with the party high command. Chirag Paswan is not in India and he will return on October 16 when the seat sharing will be finalised,” he said.

Sarma added BJP will announce the first list of candidates shortly after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announces the dates. He said the party will go for one more meeting in the state on election-related matters, after which BJP’s parliamentary board will make the final approval.

In the previous election, AJSU and BJP had fought separately. In at least 13 seats, AJSUP and BJP had contested against each another in the last election election.

Sarma said: “We don’t have any problem with seat sharing. More than being stuck, it is important that they fight the elections together. I have not gone into the mathematics of it, but it is important to win the elections and according to the ways of the NDA, we will do election campaigns together.”

Taking a dig at the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s (JMM’s) plan to implement proposed ‘JMM Samman Yojna’, giving women Rs 2,500 per month as a counter to BJP’s proposed ‘Gogo Didi Yojna’, Himanta said that if the government is capable of giving Rs 2,500, then why were the women ‘duped’ by giving them only Rs 1,000 per month. “If you (JMM-led government) had the resources and could increase the amount, then why didn’t you do it earlier?…Why did you take out the Samman Yatra for Rs 1,000 (DBT)… Until the BJP brought you into action, you did not come on war footing,” said Sarma.

Currently, in the Jharkhand Assembly’s 81 seats, the INDIA bloc has 44 seats and the BJP has 30, while seven seats remain vacant.