Bihar seat sharing: BJP, JD (U) to contest 17 seats each; LJP to fight from 6

New Delhi, Dec 23: The NDA's seat sharing arrangement for 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar has been finalised. The BJP and the JD (U) would fight from 17 seats each in the 2019 General Elections while the Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP would contest from six seats.

It has also been decided that one Rajya Sabha berth would be allocated to LJP. After days of negotiation, Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan announced the final seat-sharing deal among the NDA constituents for Bihar on Sunday.

"BJP will fight at 17 seats, Janata Dal (United) at 17 and Lok Janshakti Party at 6 seats in Bihar in upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections," Shah told the media today.

The arrangement was reportedly finalised on Friday after Paswan and his son Chirag met senior BJP leader and Union Finance Arun Jaitley. Chirag has been vocal about his party's differences with the BJP.

BJP president Amit Shah had earlier announced that his party and the JD(U) will be contesting equal number of seats in the politically crucial state where the BJP-led NDA had won 31 seats in 2014.

The LJP had contested seven of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats from and won six in 2014.

Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP, riding on Modi-wave, won 22 seats, LJP won six seats and the RLSP won three seats. Altogether, the NDA won 31 out of the 40 seats in Bihar in 2014. JD (U), which could manage just 2 seats in 2014, was then not part of the NDA then.