Bihar: BJP, JDU to contest 17 Lok Sabha seats, LJP gets 6

The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will contest six seats while the BJP and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will contest 17 seats each, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar under a seat-sharing formula, BJP President Amit Shah announced on Sunday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the JD-U also agreed to give a Rajya Sabha seat to LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.

"The BJP and the JD-U will contest 17 seats each while the LJP will contest six seats in Bihar in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections," Shah said after an hour-long meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Paswan.

Shah said they have agreed to contest under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He expressed confidence that the National Democratic Alliance would win more seats in Bihar in 2019 than it did in 2014.

Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the BJP had won 22 out of 30 it contested while the LJP won six out of seven it contested.

Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), now a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance, had won all three seats it contested as part of the NDA alliance then.

The JD-U had bagged only two seats.