With Bihar elections near, JDU plans internal meeting to finalise seat count before NDA alliance talks.
New Delhi: As the Bihar Assembly elections approach, preparations are intensifying across political circles. With an eye on the upcoming polls, the state-level leadership of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is expected to convene a crucial meeting in Patna soon to strategize their next steps. However, before this crucial meeting, the Janata Dal United (JDU) will first conduct its own internal meeting to finalise the number of seats it aims to contest in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, slated to take place in October–November this year.
According to a source within the party who spoke to The Sunday Guardian, the JDU leadership plans to hold a core committee meeting before participating in the scheduled NDA meeting later this month. The source stated that the party will determine, through collective consensus, the stance it will take during the NDA discussions. In the core committee meeting, a key point of deliberation will be how many seats the JDU will stake claim to within the alliance. Information suggests that this number is expected to fall between 100 and 110 seats. Notably, a previous core committee meeting had already taken place under the leadership of the Chief Minister.
Importantly, the JDU’s state leadership has already mapped out the seats falling within this range—constituencies where the party either currently has sitting MLAs or had previously secured victories in past elections. Once the core committee concludes its deliberations and reaches a decision, the matter will be taken up in the NDA-level meeting.
The source further revealed that several senior JDU leaders, including Union Minister Lalan Singh, JDU National President Sanjay Jha, Water Resources Minister Vijay Chaudhary, Energy Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Rural Works Minister Ashok Chaudhary, and JDU State President Umesh Singh Kushwaha, will be present at this important meeting. The seat-sharing discussion is expected to take place in the presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, during which the final number of seats JDU will demand in the NDA alliance will be decided.
According to political observers, the JDU has already drafted a list of constituencies and prospective candidates, based on assessments made during recently held district-level NDA conferences. The party leadership has reportedly decided that, unlike previous years, no formal applications will be accepted from aspirants wishing to contest the elections. Instead, local leaders have been tasked with evaluating potential candidates based on their political engagement and activity on the ground and submitting those names to the party’s central leadership. Additionally, the party will ensure that local social dynamics and caste equations are taken into serious consideration during this evaluation. The leadership has emphasised that, while a candidate’s ground presence and winnability will be major factors, the party is firm on contesting no fewer than 100 seats in the upcoming polls.