President of the BJP Amit Shah, confident of winning the Bihar elections, on Monday announced the seat sharing of the NDA for the upcoming Bihar Assembly Elections saying that the combine will win two thirds of the seats.

Expressing confidence about the NDA's chances in the upcoming polls, BJP president Amit Shah on Monday announced the seat-sharing formula of the NDA for the upcoming Bihar Assembly Election, saying that the combine will win two-thirds of the seats.

While there were reports of a deadlock between the BJP and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), Shah dismissed it saying, "We are here together."

Announcing the breakup of seats to be contested, Shah said, "Of the 243 seats in the Assembly, BJP will contest 160 seats, LJP 40 seats, RLSP 23 seats and Manjhi's HAM will contest 20 seats."

"There is no tug of war in the NDA over seat-sharing. The issue of chief ministership is to be decided by the NDA MLAs after polls," Shah told the media in a press conference.

Shah also said that some workers of Manjhi's HAM will contest elections on BJP tickets.

Taking a dig at the RJD-JD(U)-Congress grand alliance Shah said, "How will the alliance under Nitish Kumar make a corruption-free Bihar, when they are responsible for corruption and jungle raj?"

He also attacked Nitish saying, "PM Narendra Modi had announced a special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore for Bihar, but Nitish Kumar did not even have the decency to be grateful."

When asked about the BJP agenda, Shah said, "Development, development, development is our slogan. Bihar cannot be developed by jungle raj and corruption."

Taking another dig at Nitish, Shah said, "Nitish Kumar khudko Bihar maan rahein hain, lekin Bihar ki janta unko Bihar nahin maanti (He thinks he is Bihar, but the people of Bihar don't think so.)"

The NDA's seat-sharing agreement comes after several rounds of negitiations between Manjhi and the BJP.

The BJP had already resolved the seat-sharing issue with its two other allies — the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party of Upendra Kushwaha.

The party had worked out a formula under which it would contest 162 of the total 243 Assembly seats, leaving 41 for the LJP, 25 for the RLSP and 15 for HAM, but Manjhi was not happy with it.

Sources said the BJP had also been decided that five HAM candidates would contest under the BJP's symbol as a compromise formula.

According to sources, Manjhi expressed his displeasure at being offered only 15 seats.

Earlier, Manjhi had demanded seats equal to those offered to Paswan's party.

However, on Sunday afternoon, Manjhi tried to played down differences after meeting BJP leaders, saying he was not upset.

Polls to the Bihar Assembly will be held in five phases starting on 12 October and ending on 5 November. Counting of votes will take place on 8 November.

With IANS inputs