NDA Bihar deal: Upendra Kushwaha yields a seat to Chirag; BJP faces rebellion within

While the RLM may have conceded, the development may add to the heartburn in the alliance that the LJP (RV) seems to have gained the most in the NDA deal, including as many as 29 seats.

Within the BJP too, there were signs of discontent, with senior leader and former Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey’s son Arijit Shashwat Choubey indicating he could contest as an Independent after the party gave the Bhagalpur ticket to another candidate.

The BJP has been attempting a Brahmin-Bania combination in Bhagalpur for the last two polls, failing largely due to internal bickerings. If Choubey Sr, who is a five-time ex-Bhagalpur MLA, were to turn a rebel, the going will be tough for BJP candidate Rohit Pandey.

Another BJP leader, Priti Shekhar, a former Bhagalpur deputy mayor, has also filed her nomination papers as an Independent from the seat.

Before he returned to Patna, Kushwaha told mediapersons in Delhi that his talks with Shah had ended on a satisfactory note. “I am hopeful there will be no difficulty ahead. There will certainly be an NDA government in Bihar,” he said, while confirming that the Mahua seat had figured in the discussions.

The 6 seats for which the RLM announced its candidates Wednesday night are Bajpatti, Madhubani, Paroo, Ujiarpur, Sasaram and Dinara. The Mahua seat reportedly assigned to it seems to have been swapped with Paroo.

While Paroo was won in 2020 by the BJP, the RJD was victorious in the other 5 constituencies. The RLM reportedly wanted the Obra and Kurtha seats instead, where it had a better chance because of favourable social equations, but could not get the same.

Late on Tuesday, after the BJP declared 71 candidates for its quota of 101 seats, Kushwaha and Union minister Nityanand Rai of the BJP had met BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary. Kushwaha’s quip to the media after the meeting suggested that a rift was in the making. “This time, nothing is well in the NDA,” he said.

On Wednesday, Rai accompanied Kushwaha to Delhi for the meeting with Shah.

In the 2020 Assembly elections, the RJD had won from Mahua defeating the JD(U) candidate by 13,770 votes. The LJP contested independently then, and is believed to have spoiled the JD(U)’s chances in the seat, getting 25,198 votes and finishing third. Kushwaha’s party — then the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party — finished way behind, with just 6,341 votes.