This special report details the escalating tensions within Bihar's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) just weeks before the assembly elections. The focus is on the breakdown of seat-sharing talks between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), leading the JDU to unilaterally start shortlisting and distributing party symbols to its candidates. The anchor notes that, 'the mind games clearly continuing with the JDU saying look, we're not going to wait for any sort of finalization.' The situation intensified after a scheduled joint NDA press conference was cancelled, indicating deep divisions over which constituencies each party would contest. This defiance from the JDU, while its alliance partner BJP is still in negotiations, highlights a significant power struggle and adds a layer of uncertainty to the upcoming polls in the state.
00:00News break coming in. What's happening in Bihar? We're weeks away from the election and there's still no formal seat deal that's been finalized for the NDA.
00:09JDU has started, however, shortlisting candidates. They're not waiting. They're not pressing the pause button.
00:15JDU started pledging seats to candidates. This despite the fact that the amp-ass over seats continues within the NDA.
00:21Remember, we were supposed to see a press conference today that reportedly didn't happen because the BJP and JDU are now in talks without any sort of end insight on which seat goes to whom of the 101 that's been pledged to each side.
00:37There's a top JDU huddle that's also taken place as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's residence and the JDU seems to be in a hurry.
00:44They're not waiting for any formal announcement. What we're hearing from our sources is that there are many who are being told and communicated that they're getting a ticket in their respective seats.
00:54This despite the fact that there's no formal seat-sharing deal that's been confirmed just yet.
00:59And the BJP and JDU are yet to figure out exactly who gets which seat, how many is done.
01:06But which seat is something that the fight continues over.
01:09Rohit Singh is joining us from Patna with more details on this, Rohit.
01:13The mind game is clearly continuing with the JDU saying, look, we're not going to wait for any sort of finalization.
01:20We're going ahead with the formula that we wanted.
01:25Yes, see, there seems to be last-minute glitches as far as the NDA is concerned over the announcement of candidates for the Bihar Assembly election,
01:36especially for the first phase. And today, what we learned is that there was a scheduled press conference that was supposed to be held by the NDA.
01:44But that did not happen because of some last-minute issues that erupted between BJP and JDU over the selection of seats.
01:54And that is why we are seeing that it's already 13th of October today.
01:57Four days have already passed.
01:59And still, no party, whether it's the NDA or the Mahagatwandan, has officially declared their candidates.
02:07And that is why we are seeing that those candidates who will be getting tickets, whose names are almost confirmed,
02:17they have started getting symbols from their respective parties.
02:20Like in JDU, we saw that few candidates whose tickets have not been cut, and it's for sure that they will be contesting elections again.
02:28So, Ritish Kumar has handed over symbols to a few of them.
02:33So, we are seeing that without an official announcement being made by either party, BJP, JDU, or any other alliance partners,
02:41that because the time is very short, that symbols have started getting distributed.
02:46They are running out of time, and despite that, there has been no formal announcement.
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