Bihar crisis over! BJP's big announcement today
Patna : Ram Vilas Paswan's party and BJP will be working together to aim victory in Bihar, an unconfirmed report claimed after Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley's meeting with Paswan.
An official announcement on this is likely to be made on Saturday. According to sources, Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party has agreed to contest five seats in Bihar and one in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh or Jharkhand. The BJP has also agreed to give away a seventh seat, a Rajya Sabha seat for the senior Paswan, who is Union minister for food distribution.
Ram Vilas Paswan, 72, does not intend to contest next year’s general election and has been looking for a Rajya Sabha seat for himself. He is currently a nine-term Lok Sabha member.
Every year Bihar sends 40 members to the Lok Sabha. In the 2014 elections, Paswan’s party had been allocated seven seats by the NDA; it won six of them and had started talks demanding that it shouldn’t have to fight on fewer seats than last time.
Ram Vilas Paswan’s younger brother, Ramchandra Paswan, hinted they were on the right track. “We are still with the BJP.... We shall announce a seat sharing formula with the BJP,” he said.