Talks on seat-sharing not progressing: JD(U)

A day after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar declined the offer of opposition parties to become convener of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the Janata Dal (United) expressed disappointment over the bloc not finalising seat-sharing arrangements nor chalking out a campaign to take on the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming parliamentary polls.

Things have not moved as the party had wanted, JD(U) leader and state finance minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said on Sunday. "No serious effort has been made to finalise seat-sharing.

The national campaign as proposed earlier has also not been chalked out. We feel things have not moved as we had planned earlier," he said.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge emerged as the consensus chairperson of the INDIA bloc but Kumar's candidature as convener has been opposed by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, HT reported on Sunday. Discussions on sharing seats for the Lok Sabha elections did not make substantive progress at the alliance's fourth meeting on Saturday.

Seat-sharing talks in Bihar among the six ruling coalition members has also made tardy progress over differences on seat adjustment and allotment with JD(U), Congress and the Left parties, especially CPI-ML (Liberation) playing hardball, according to people aware of the details.