Bihar polls: Denied ticket, BJP MLA meets Nitish
Many BJP MLAs are upset as they didn't get tickets for the Bihar polls.
The NDA is grappling with widespread resentment, dissension and even rebellion amid hectic parleys among its allies for finalisation of seats for the upcoming elections in Bihar.
The BJP on Tuesday released its first list of 43 candidates, which included 26 sitting legislators and 17 new faces. It, however, denied tickets to five of its legislators - Aman Kumar from Pirpainti, Sonelal Hembram from Katoria, Kanhaiya Rajwar from Rajauli, Lalan Paswan from Teghra and Surendra Prasad from Gurua.
Aman, however, sounded a bugle of revolt straightaway by calling on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday morning.
"If the BJP has shut the door on me, I have to look out for another way," he said after meeting the chief minister.
The young legislator claimed that Kumar was surprised to know that he had not been given the ticket by the BJP.
Aman accused former Union minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain of being responsible for denial of the party ticket to him. "He did not want me to get the ticket because of his personal grudges," he said.
JD(U) sources said that many other sitting BJP MLAs had also approached the party leadership for tickets.
The announcement of the first list of BJP candidates, however, took its allies by surprise. Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) said that the BJP's announcement at a time when the talks over the seats was still going on was against the spirit of coalition dharma.
The NDA allies are locked in brain-storming over certain seats. Alliance sources said while Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha had both staked claim to Chakai and Jamui seats, the BJP and the LJP were not in agreement over the two seats in Rohtas district. Manjhi's party also wanted Nabinagar and Jhajha seats for its candidates Lovely Anand and Arjun Mandal respectively but the BJP had already announced its candidates for these seats.
Senior HAM leader Devendra Prasad Yadav resigned from the party against the allocation of merely 20 seats. The former Union minister said that his party leadership had surrendered to the BJP. "We should have got 50 seats, or at least as many as the LJP has got," he said.
The LJP, meanwhile, is also facing revolt by its Vaishali MP Rama Kishor Singh. Singh, a former bahubali, had on Tuesday resigned from all party posts alleging that there was no inner democracy in the party. Speculations were rife that he had met RJD president Lalu Prasad but he denied it.
The BJP has given the LJP, RLSP and the HAM 40, 23 and 20 seats respectively while keeping 160 seats for itself in the upcoming polls for the 243-member Bihar assembly.