Nitish Kumar gives patient hearing to 200 'aspiring' candidates

PATNA: JD(U) national president and CM Nitish Kumar on Tuesday interacted with around 200 ticket aspirants for the parliamentary election at the party’s state headquarters.


The three NDA partners — JD(U), BJP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) -- have apportioned the state’s 40 parliamentary seats in the ratio of 17:17:6, respectively.

On Sunday, their state presidents Bashishtha Narayan Singh, Nityanand Rai and Pashupati Kumar Paras jointly announced the seats their parties would contest. They said the candidates would also be announced jointly “in a couple of days”.

The CM was accompanied by former minister Ashok Choudhary and the party’s chief state spokesman Sanjay Kumar Singh.

JD(U) state general secretary Navin Arya said Nitish heard each of them and also received the applications they had brought to back up their claims. “He only heard their pleas and also told them to start making preparations for the election with a view to winning all the 40 seats,” Arya said, adding most of the aspirants were from Bhagalpur, Banka, Nalanda, Gaya and Jehanabad.

“It was not a programme that had been scheduled before. Instead, the CM was alerted about the ticket seekers who were anxious to meet him to press for their demands,” Arya said.

Of the two major political combines, the NDA partners have already announced their seats, while the grand alliance comprising RJD, Congress and RLSP and a few others have been still haggling over the seat sharing. The GA partners are expected to announce their respective parliamentary seats on Wednesday.