Bihar: Paswan’s son warns BJP over seat sharing; says failure to conclude talks will be damaging

Days after Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samta Party exited NDA, the Lok Janshakti Party, on Tuesday, December 19, said the NDA is passing through “trying times” after the exit of the TDP and the RLSP, and the BJP's failure to address concerns of coalition partners in a "timely" manner could be "damaging".

In a series of tweets, LJP parliamentary board chairman Chirag Paswan expressed disappointment over “no headway” despite “a number of meetings with the BJP leadership” over the issue of seat-sharing in Bihar.

Besides Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), the LJP is the only constituent of the BJP-led NDA left in Bihar after the exit of the former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP).

“Following the exit of the TDP and the RLSP, the NDA is passing through trying times. In view of this, it is imperative that the BJP addresses the concerns of those still in the alliance in a timely and respectable manner”, Paswan tweeted in Hindi.

The TDP, headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, had pulled out of the NDA a few months ago in protest against the truncated state not getting special assistance from the Centre, which was promised at the time of the creation of Telangana.

“No headway has been made on seat-sharing despite a number of meetings with leaders of the BJP. If things are not settled in time, it could prove to be damaging”, the LJP leader, whose father Ram Vilas Paswan is a member of the Union cabinet, said in another tweet.

The LJP, which was previously with the Congress-led UPA, had joined the NDA ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and won six out of the seven seats it had contested. The party also got a ministerial berth in the state government when Nitish Kumar returned to the NDA last year.

Notably, Chirag Paswan had also expressed disapproval of raising issues like the Ayodhya Ram temple in elections after the BJP lost power in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.