New Delhi: Senior Bihar BJP leaders are in Delhi for a key strategy meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, where the agenda will include finalising seat-sharing arrangements with allies, assessing anti-incumbency against sitting MLAs, and weighing the impact of recent political developments in the state. party president Jagat Prakash Nadda too will be part of this meet.
According to sources, one of the points that is likely to be discussed is the demands being raised by the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) which is pressing for more than 40 seats, making the distribution exercise a delicate balancing act within the NDA.
The general consensus among the Bihar based BJP leadership, based on the LJP’s past performance is that it should not be allotted more than twenty seats given its limited reach among a selected pocket irrespective of the tall claims being made by its leaders.
Party leaders said that while most of the constituencies which will be contested by the JD(U) have been decided, a handful remain under discussion as the BJP too is seeking to contest them.
Some clarity is expected on such seats.
Internal surveys, according to sources, have revealed a troubling picture for the party, with several MLAs including a high-profile minister facing strong anti-incumbency. In some instances, cadre assessments have placed sitting leaders in third position, intensifying the urgency for a corrective strategy. In wake of this, party leaders are hopeful that the candidate list will be declared well ahead of the poll schedule rather than dragging it on till the last moment, as has been the trend so far.
Among those expected at the Delhi meeting are Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, Vijay Sinha, state in-charge Vinod Tawde, co-incharge Deepak Prakash, state president Dilip Jaiswal, and Union ministers Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai.
The discussions will also cover feedback from the ground regarding the government programmes, the response to the just concluded Rahul Gandhi’s “Vote Adhikar Yatra,” and the response of the people to the incident of opposition workers abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his mother.
The deliberations come just ahead of Modi’s visit to Purnia on 13 September, his seventh trip to Bihar in recent months.
