NEW DELHI, 25 September 2005 — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finalized its first list of candidates for 80 of the 105 seats it plans to contest in the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls. But even after the marathon election meeting of the BJP and its ally Janata Dal-United on Friday, there were rumbles of discontent from JD-U. The saffron party’s ally wants it to contest fewer seats. “Still no resolution has been found. Both parties will sit again on Sunday,” said Nagmani, JD-U national general secretary.
The JD-U feels that it needs to cater to the independent candidates as well as the Lok Janashakti Party members who have joined it. That is why the JD-U is demanding that the BJP fight the elections for lfewer than 105 seats.
“We have to accommodate independents and LJP’s legislators who recently joined JD-U,” Nagmani said. But the BJP is not ready for this. Also both parties are planning to have different manifestoes for the elections. “We feel we can make the government. Last time also the manifestoes of the parties were separate and so it is even now,” said Arun Jaitley, general secretary of BJP.
The BJP has a lot of expectations from the Bihar elections. The BJP wants to divert attention from its party problems by emerging strong in the Bihar polls. And for this it just might be willing to compromise on the question of seats.
Meanwhile, the Congress has sharply attacked LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, accusing him of indulging in vote bank politics. Paswan was supposed to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday but that meeting never took place.
