While the BJP and JD(U) are keen on continuing their alliance in the Jharkhand Assembly polls, seat-sharing arrangements have become a bone of contention. Two rounds of talks between JD(U) president Sharad Yadav and BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi — on Monday and Tuesday — have failed to yield a suitable solution. Now, another meeting, which will be attended by other state leaders from both parties, has been scheduled for Wednesday morning.

The BJP on Tuesday declared 59 candidates for the coming Jharkhand Assembly election. The party has fielded former Assembly Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari’s son Dilip Singh Namdhari from Daltonganj. The party has dropped three sitting MLAs. It will come out with the remaining names after it has finalised its seat adjustment with the JD(U).

The stalemate is due to the fact that while the JD(U) is demanding 18 seats — it contested 17 of the total 81 in the 2005 Assembly polls — the BJP is willing to offer only nine. Citing the parties’ Lok Sabha poll performance, the BJP position is based on the premise that the ground realities are different this time. The saffron party won eight of the 12 seats it contested while the JD(U) lost in both the constituencies it fought. The JD(U) is prepared for a cut, but only by “one or two seats”, while the BJP is looking at more drastic measures.

“We would not go beyond nine this time,” a BJP leader told The Indian Express. The BJP has calculated the JD(U)’s share by factoring in the six seats where party nominees had won besides three others where they had finished second in the last Assembly polls.

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