New Delhi: Ending months of tense negotiations and speculations about an internal rift, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) declared its seat-sharing formula on Sunday, NDTV reported.
As per the report, the BJP President Amit Shah announced that his party as well as the Janata Dal (United) will contest on 17 seats each while the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will contest on six seats. Paswan will himself be elected separately on a Rajya Sabha seat separately as an NDA candidate. The exact seats have not been identified, however.
“All three parties strongly believe that NDA will win more seats in 2019 than what we won in 2014 and have agreed that PM Modi will form the government at the centre,” Shah said, according a report in The Indian Express.
In the joint press briefing with Shah and Paswan, JD (U) Nitish Kumar was quoted as saying in the NDTV report, “We will sit together with the BJP leadership and discuss the issues. We will work towards ensuring NDA’s win in 2019 elections.”
As per this report in The Hindu Kumar also “sounded a note of caution on just how far the alliance’s support could be counted on”. “We are of the opinion that the Ram Mandir matter should be solved through a court decision,” the Bihar Chief Minister and JD (U) Supremo was quoted as saying in the report.