NDA list out, JD(U) gets Gaya, Gopalganj SC seats

PATNA: The three Bihar NDA partners — JD(U), BJP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) — on Sunday jointly announced the parliamentary seats they would contest in the ratio of 17:17:6. The candidates would be announced “in a couple of days”, they said. That way, the NDA has taken the lead over the Mahagathbandhan of RJD, Congress and other parties in announcing their respective seats.
The 17 of the 40 seats which have gone to the JD(U) are: Valmikinagar, Sitamarhi, Jhanjharpur, Supaul, Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, Madhepura, Gopalganj, Siwan, Banka, Bhagalpur, Munger, Nalanda, Karakat, Jehanabad and Gaya.
Similarly, the 17 other seats the BJP will contest are: West Champaran (Bettiah), East Champaran (Motihari), Sheohar, Madhubani, Araria, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Maharajganj, Saran, Ujiarpur, Begusarai, Patna Sahib, Patliputra, Ara, Buxar, Sasaram and Aurangabad.
The remaining six seats of Vaishali, Hajipur, Samastipur, Khagaria, Jamui and Nawada have gone to the LJP.
BJP has retained the four seats that its Union ministers held — Radha Mohan Singh (East Champaran), Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), R K Singh (Ara) and Ram Kripal Yadav (Patliputra). The fifth Union minister Giriraj Singh, who held the Nawada seat, would be shifted to Begusarai, with his existing seat going to the LJP.
That way, while all of them would be in the fray. Yet another Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad might be fielded from Patna Sahib against BJP’s rebel and sitting MP Shatrughan Sinha, who is in the race for a ticket from the Mahagathbandhan side.
The BJP has given three seats — Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnia — to the JD(U) in the Seemanchal region, besides Bhagalpur. These constituencies have a significant presence of Muslims. Overall, BJP has ceded five seats — Valmikinagar, Siwan, Gopalganj, Gaya and Jhanjharpur to JD(U), while it has given Nawada to the LJP. Further, among the seats reserved for the scheduled castes (SCs), BJP gave Gaya and Gopalganj to JD(U).
It was for the first time that BJP held the joint press conference at the state JD(U) headquarters, which by implication, recognized the upper edge that CM Nitish Kumar has in the state. The JD(U) was the first to join the NDA in 1996, while LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan came to its fold in 2013.
“We will seek votes in the name of work done by PM Narendra Modi at the Centre and by CM Nitish Kumar in the state. The leaders and workers of the three parties are united. They would work in all the 40 constituencies as one unit,” JD(U) state president Bashishtha Narayan Singh said.
BJP state chief Nityanand Rai said favourable wind has been blowing in favour of the NDA in the entire state.
“Today, we have jointly announced our seats. We will also jointly announce our candidates for all the 40 seats in a couple of days,” LJP state president Pashupati Kumar Paras said, adding: “In Bihar, we will win all the 40 seats and nationally 400.”
The JD(U), which split from the NDA in June 2013 and rejoined it in July 2017 after walking out of the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, had won only Nalanda and Purnia seats in the 2014 parliamentary elections. In contrast, the BJP had secured 22 seats and the LJP six.
The seats have been announced three months after CM Nitish, BJP national president Amit Shah and LJP chief had reached the 17:17:6 formula in December last year.