'If the Mahagathbandhan ignores Mukesh Sahni's demands as it did in 2020, he will be left with no option but to join hands with the BJP.'
There is a buzz in Patna's political circles that Mukesh Sahni, who heads the Vikassheel Insaan Party, is likely to quit the Opposition Mahagathbandhan and join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Bihar assembly elections later this year.
On Wednesday Sahni did not attend the Mahagathbandhan coordination committee meeting to discuss seat sharing for the assembly election and other issues.
Sahni sent a party representative to the meeting. He was in Delhi, reportedly to meet a senior BJP leader to discuss the possibility of returning to the NDA fold.
Sahni, who belongs to an extremely backward caste, wants the Mahagathbandan to allocate 60 of Bihar's 243 assembly seats to the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the deputy chief minister's post if the Opposition alliance is elected to power.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which emerged as the single largest party in the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls in Bihar, would like to contest between 130 and 140 seats this election. The remaining seats will be shared between other Mahagathbandan constituents like the Congress and the Communists.
The Congress is reportedly eyeing 70 seats, the Communist Party of India 24 while the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) wants 40 to 45 seats.
"How can the RJD give 60 seats to Sahni?" asks an RJD leader. "What about the Congress and Left parties who are more reliable allies than the VIP?"
The RJD contested 144 seats in the 2020 assembly polls and won 75 seats; the Congress contested 70 seats and won 19; the CPI (ML) contested 19 seats and won 12, while the CPI and the CPI-M won 2 seats each.
At earlier Mahagathbandhan coordination committee meetings Sahni stated that his caste and sub caste (Mallah, Nishad) constitute around 12% of Bihar's population and deserve representation as per their numbers.
Sahni early this week claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah is his political guru and he has good relations with other BJP leaders.
Sources in the VIP claim that the BJP has offered Sahni a ministership in Delhi, a Rajya Sabha seat and a decent number of seats to contest the Bihar assembly polls if the VIP joins the NDA.
"If the Mahagathbandhan ignores Sahni's demands as it did in 2020, he will be left with no option but to join hands with the BJP," warns a senior VIP leader who is close to Sahni.
In October 2020 Sahni quit the Mahagathbandhan over seat sharing issues and joined the NDA.
"Sahni then demanded more seats and the deputy CM's post. When his demand was not accepted, he left the Mahagathbandhan and joined the NDA. Nothing similar can be ruled out this time," a political observer in Patna recalled.
Sahni's VIP won 4 of 11 seats it contested as an NDA ally in the 2020 assembly polls. Sahni was made a cabinet minister in Nitish Kumar's government.
In 2022 Sahni quit the NDA after he was removed as a minister following differences with the BJP.
Three of Sahni's four VIP MLAs defected to the BJP.
A senior BJP leader said relations with Sahni turned bitter after the VIP contested the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh on its own despite objections from the BJP.
What upset the BJP was the way Sahni targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during the election campaign.
Sahni, 45, a Bollywood set designer-turned-politician, has promised to continue to fight for reservations for the Mallah/Nishad community which has a sizeable presence in flood-prone north Bihar.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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