The Hindu : National : Our doors are open, says Nitish Kumar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

National

National

Our doors are open, says Nitish Kumar

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JAN. 10. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United) today announced a seat-sharing formula for the Bihar Assembly elections, dividing the 243 seats between them — the JD (U) will contest 138 seats and the BJP 105. This is the sixth election the two parties are in alliance.

However, "our doors are wide open," said the JD (U) leader, Nitish Kumar, when asked at a press conference whether he had given up the idea of persuading the Lok Janshakti Party chief, Ram Vilas Paswan, to join their alliance. "We had to complete our work as the nominations are due to begin, but even now if Mr. Paswan takes a decision, [to join us] seat-sharing can take place," he added.

Senior party leaders on both sides have admitted that it might now be too late to get Mr. Paswan tie-up with the alliance, but pointed out "informal arrangements" were possible.

The BJP general secretary, Arun Jaitley, who was present at the press meet, said the seat-sharing process was smooth. The two parties trusted each other and "we had no problems sharing a few seats more or less" with the JD (U).

Mr. Kumar made it clear that "personally he was not a claimant to the chief minister's post (in the event of this formation winning the election)" and insisted that his earlier offer to Mr. Paswan that if he were to join the alliance he would be the chief ministerial candidate stood. "Once I have said something, I do not take it back," he said.

At the same time, both Mr. Kumar and Mr. Jaitley said the alliance was not projecting a chief ministerial candidate and that would be decided "as smoothly as the seat-sharing was done when the time comes."

The two parties are now expected to settle down to selection of candidates. The BJP's central election committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow to consider the Bihar list and the remaining 15 candidates for the Haryana polls.

Anti-incumbency

A senior BJP leader indicated that about 20 per cent of the 37 sitting MLAs could be dropped as there was a strong anti-incumbency sentiment against them as a result of non-performance. In Jharkhand, the BJP had dropped 12 sitting legislators.

It was made clear that the alliance was keen on putting together a formidable anti-Rashtriya Janata Dal front. When five parties were ranged against the BJP-JD (U) alliance in the Lok Sabha polls in May last, the RJD, Congress, the two Left parties and the Nationalist Congress Party together polled 44 per cent of the votes against the 37 per cent polled by the BJP-JD (U). Since then the RJD-led alliance had lost "about seven per cent of the votes taken by Mr. Paswan," the BJP leader, Sushil Modi said. "We are now the weightier party," he added.

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