BJP Finalised Seat Sharing With Allies By Deepak Parvatiyar September 16, 2015 5.00/5 (100.00%) 3 votes This was one arduous task that the Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah accomplished with aplomb – seat allocation between its alliance partners. It is significant that all the three allies in the state represent the Dalits, Mahadalits and the OBCs. Of them, while Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party are already tested allies who had gained much of their association with the BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections. It was crucial for the BJP to tackle new entrant Jitan Ram Manjhi and to keep him within the NDA fold. This was also important in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust on social engineering in Bihar – to expand the party’s social base by wooing the Mahadalits and Yadavs towards the BJP. The Manjhi factor was crucial for the BJP to prop him to gain a foothold on the crucial 15 per cent Mahada
