BJP seat offer for Lok Sabha elections 2019 not respectable: Kushwaha
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s offer of seats to Rashtriya Lok Samata Party for the 2019 general election was "not respectable”, said party President Upendra Kushwaha on Saturday. Not disclosing the number of seats offered to the RLSP, Kushwaha said he would not speak about it before a seat-sharing agreement is reached by NDA constituents in Bihar by November 30.
Kushwaha, the Union minister of state for HRD, was speaking to reporters after the RLSP state executive meeting in Patna.
The RLSP chief is at loggerheads with Nitish Kumar over the Bihar chief minister's recent remarks against him.
"Itna neeche baat ko nahi le jaiye" (do not take the debate to such a low level), Kumar had said as he refused to join issue with Kushwaha over seat-sharing between NDA partners in Bihar.
Kushwaha appears to have picked up the word "neeche" from the statement and took it as an insult to himself as the RLSP chief was the topic of discussion.
He further alleged the remark was tantamount to calling him a lowly person.
Kushwaha also signalled his growing isolation within the coalition by targeting BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi for defending Kumar.
When asked about this, he had said, "I am in the NDA as of now."
He will try to speak to "no other BJP leader except the prime minister," Kushwaha said as his efforts to meet BJP president Amit Shah over the issue have not yielded results.
Bihar has a total of 40 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP and the JD(U) have decided to contest equal number of seats.
The fourth partner of the NDA in Bihar is Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party.
