LJP not ready for anything less than 7 seats; JD (U) looking for equal seats with the BJP

New Delhi, Oct 24: The two hard bargainers in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar now assisted by party vice president Prashant Kishar - have not yet settled their seat sharing when the third important partner of the NDA Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Ram Vilas Paswan has made it clear to the BJP leadership that it is not going to accept anything less than seven seats in the state.

National spokesperson of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) Ajay Kumar told Oneindia that LJP is not going to accept anything less than seven seats in Bihar and the party also wants its share in Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections.

Ajay Kumar said, "The party is buoyant with its success and expansion of its base as it opened its account even in Jammu and Kashmir where it has won two seats in local body elections and lost one seat by just three votes. We are in the government in Manipur with the BJP besides at the Centre. We contested Manipur Assembly elections separately. We are in the government in the state."

Meanwhile. Janata Dal (U) has made it clear that the party won't settle anything less than than the BJP which reportedly offered one less seats that it would be contesting. If the BJP wants to contest on 17 seats the JD (U) must also be given 17 seats. Sources said that such pressure tactics is the style of Prashant Kishor who is taking care of the election management of the JD (U) and is likely to contest Lok Sabha elections from Buxar seat."

But a BJP leader on condition of anonymity said that there is limit to everything and the JD (U) must not forget that it had won just two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections so if alliance does not work it is not only the BJP that would be at the receiving end, the JD (U) too would be at loss.

So with the JD (U) demanding equal number of seats as of the BJP, the LJP is not ready to settle anything less than seven seats and Upendra Kushwaha wanting three seats for the Lok Sabha elections, there seems to be no meeting ground. Sources said that actually the NDA alliance partners are in touch with other players in the state so they are short of putting pressure on BJP to extract maximum.

A BJP sources had earlier said that under a deal made in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the BJP was to get 17 seats out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state while 16 seats were decided for JD (U) while LJP was to get six seats and Upendra Kushwaha two seats.

But the JD (U) seems to have devised a new strategy and one thing that needs to be understood that anything is gain for JD (U) but loss for the BJP.