 "BJP must contest only 102 seats in Bihar: RLSP")
The BJP must contest only 102 of the 243 seats in the Bihar assembly and leave the rest to its three allies, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) said on Friday.
RLSP leader Upendra Kushwaha, the union minister of state of human resource development, made the appeal at a press conference here.
He said that in the last assembly polls in 2010, the BJP contested 102 seats and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), then its ally, put up candidates in 141 constituencies.
"Last time there was only one ally but this time there are three allies, and the BJP should concentrate (on the seats it contested) last time," he said.
Kushwaha said the RLSP wanted to contest from 67 seats. He said the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan should be given 74 seats, adding some seats can be given to the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) too.
BJP president Amit Shah, who has discussed seat sharing with party colleagues from Bihar, announced earlier this year that his party wanted to contest and win 185 of the 243 seats.
On the other hand, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the JD-U have decided to contest 100 seats each, leaving 40 to the Congress and three to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).