BJP disagrees with Vikassheel Insaan Party's demand to contest four of 24 council seats in Bihar

PATNA: The ongoing tussle among the NDA allies over seat-sharing for 24 legislative council seats escalated further on Sunday after senior BJP leader and state’s deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad virtually rejected the Vikassheel Insaan Party’s (VIP) demand of four seats, saying, “The BJP never contested the Bihar Vidhan Parishad polls in alliance with the VIP.”
Asked for his response over Mukesh Sahni-led VIP’s threat to field its candidates from all 24 local authorities’ constituencies of the council, if its demand for four seats are not fulfilled by the NDA, Prasad said, “We (BJP) never contested council polls with the VIP (in the past).Instead, we got the VIP president Mukesh Sahni elected as a member of the Bihar legislative council because he is one of the important allies of our national democratic alliance (NDA).”
Earlier, the VIP had demanded four seats from the NDA leaders on the plea that a large number of its supporters have been elected in the recently completed three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) elections. Elected members of the PRIs and the urban local bodies (ULBs) form the Electoral College which cast votes in the local authorities’ constituencies of the council.
These 24 seats in the council fell vacant on July 16, 2021 after the previous elected MLCs completed their six years’ term. The election in the 24 seats could not be held on time because of non-completion of the Electoral College due to the delay in the PRIs elections and also because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Contacted over phone, the VIP spokesperson Rajiv Mishra told TOI on Sunday that his party has made necessary preparations to field its candidates from all 24 council seats, if it is not given four seats as part of the seat-sharing among the NDA allies.
On being asked to name the four constituencies which the VIP wants to contest, Mishra said though his party had already identified its four preferred constituencies, he would not reveal the names right now because it would cause more problems among the NDA allies. “The Election Commission is yet to notify the council polls. Once the notification is issued, we will formally forward the names of four seats to the NDA top leaders,” Mishra told TOI.
The VIP spokesperson also said that the deputy CM was correct in his statement when he said that the BJP never contested council polls in alliance with the VIP. “The last council polls for 24 seats were held in 2015 and the VIP came into existence in 2018. Hence, there is no question of contesting these polls in alliance. Even JD(U) was not the BJP’s ally in 2015 when the last polls for 24 council seats were held,” Mishra said.
In the last elections for 24 council seats held in July 2015, the BJP had won 11 seats, the JD(U) five, RJD-four, LJP –one, Congress- one and Independents-- two seats. But later on, one of the independent Ashok Kumar Agarwal (Katihar) and LJP’s lone MLC Nutan Singh joined the BJP, taking its total number to 13. Similarly, RJD’s three MLCs—Radha Charan Sah (Bhojpur-Buxar)), Dilip Rai (Sitamarhi-Sheohar) and Sanjay Prasad (Muger) joined the JD(U), taking its number to eight. The Congress MLC Rajesh Ram (West Champaran) also joined the JD(U) a few months back.
The current strength of members in the state legislative council is 51 against the total strength of 75 because all 24 seats to be filled from the local authorizes’ constituencies are vacant since July, 2021.