Lok Sabha election 2024: BJP to contest on 17 seats in Bihar, JDU 16, Chirag’s party gets 5

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest on 17 constituencies in Bihar during the Lok Sabha election 2024 while Janata Dal United (JDU) has been allotted 16 as part of the seat sharing formula between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents. Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) will fight on five of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar while the other two smaller parties have been given one each.

BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde on Monday gave the details of the seat sharing in Bihar while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi. The other two parties former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and former union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) will contest on one seat each.

Pashupati Kumar Paras’s Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) has not been allotted any Lok Sabha seat; instead the party has been offered one Rajya Sabha seat along with a ministerial berth in the government of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The NDA had in Lok Sabha election 2019 won 39 of the 40 seats in Bihar. The maximum seats were wonm by BJP which scored 17, JDU had 16 while the then united Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan bagged six.

But the LJP split into two after Paswan’s death. After a protracted political and legal battle, Chirag Paswan was allotted the name Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) while his maternal uncle and Ram Vila Paswan’s younger brother Pashupati Kumar Paras got the remaining unit called as RLJP.