Bihar Assembly elections will witness the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD taking on the state chief minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), while the Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP would be pitted mostly against the state deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi-led BJP. The RJD-LJP seat-adjustments appear to have been made in such a way that the LJP would largely contest the urban areas against the BJP, while the RJD would be slugging it out against the JD(U) in most of the rural areas of Bihar.
Though the RJD-LJP have not yet made the details of their seat-adjustment public except for that the RJD would be contesting 168 Assembly seats, while the LJP would field candidates on 75 constituencies, they are stated to have divided their domain in rural and urban areas.
Sources said that the LJP would be fielding candidates in the Patna urban areas where the BJP have sitting legislators. Further, the LJP would be fielding candidates from the urban areas of Motihari, Bhagalpur, Buxar, Hajipur, which again have largely been the areas from where the BJP won in the 2005 Assembly elections. “Since the BJP largely has its vote base in the urban areas and among the upper castes and the traders community, the LJP will be seeking to take on the saffron party in such areas. The LJP will be fielding a large number of candidates from the upper castes to cash in on the anger among the caste groups against the ruling NDA in the state,” stated a senior RJD leader.
The RJD, which is attemp-ting to weave around a caste equation of other backward castes (OBCs), Muslims and Rajputs, is stated to contest against the JD(U) in large number of constituencies. “The RJD is to contest on most number of seats in the areas of North Bihar, including Saharsa, Madhubani, Madhepura, as Yadavs are in formidable numbers there,” the leader said.