Bharatiya Janata Party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) met at the party headquarters in New Delhi last night. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP National President JP Nadda and other senior party leaders attended the meeting, which was aimed at finalising the party’s strategy and list of candidates for the Bihar Assembly elections. The BJP’s CEC comes after the announcement of the NDA’s seat-sharing formula for the Bihar polls.
The ruling NDA announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the Bihar Assembly elections yesterday. As per the agreement, the BJP and Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) will contest 101 seats each, while the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) will contest 29 seats. The Rashtriya Lok Morcha and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) have been allocated six seats each.
The NDA will face competition from the Opposition’s INDI Alliance, which comprises the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led by Tejashwi Yadav, the Congress, the CPI(ML) Liberation, the CPI, the CPI(M), and the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) led by Mukesh Sahani. The INDI Alliance is yet to finalise its seat-sharing formula, with reports suggesting that the RJD and Congress are engaged in talks to finalise the seat distribution. Bihar Assembly elections will be held in two phases on November 6 and November 11, with the counting of votes scheduled for November 14.
