“We NDA colleagues have completed the distribution of seats in a cordial atmosphere,” says JDU national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha on X. Reflecting a change in political equations within Bihar’s ruling alliance, the JDU and BJP have decided to contest an equal number of seats in the 2025 election. The math is impacted majorly by the entry of Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV). Here’s the math of the 243 seats as divided among NDA constituents, shared on X by JDU working national chief Sanjay Kumar Jha:
Janata Dal (United) or JDU: 101
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): 101
Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) or LJP(RV): 29
Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM): 6
Hindustani Awam Party (Secular) or HAM(S): 6
Further details were not yet in, as of 6.30 pm on October 12.
“Leaders and workers of all NDA parties welcome this with joy and are united to make Nitish Kumar the chief minister again with a massive majority,” Sanjay Kumar Jha wrote in his post. This is a major climbdown for the JDU led by CM Nitish Kumar, which contested 115 seats in the 2020 Bihar assembly election. The BJP has also come down from 110. In 2020, the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), then part of the NDA, contested 11 seats.
The HAM(S) led by former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi got seven constituencies to contest, while the LJP (then undivided) contested 135 seats on its own as Chirag Paswan pledged loyalty to BJP but enmity with the JDU. Both Manjhi and Paswan are now ministers in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Bihar will vote in two phases, on November 6 and 11, with the counting of votes set for the 14th. The opposition Mahagathbandhan or INDIA bloc of the RJD and Congress, plus some others, is yet to announce its sharing formula.
