RLSP chief Kushwaha meets BJP's Bihar in-charge Bhupendra Yadav

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) president and Union minister Upendra Kushwaha and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Bhupendra Yadav Thursday held deliberations over a host of political issues, including the Lok Sabha election due next year, sources said.

Yadav is the BJP's in-charge for Bihar and has been meeting with the party's allies to hammer out a seat-sharing formula acceptable to all.

The RLSP is a BJP ally in Bihar and it had won three seats in the 2014 parliamentary polls.

There has been speculation over whether Kushwaha will remain a part of the BJP-led alliance, mostly due to his long differences with Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar, who was not with the saffron party in 2014 but joined hands with it in 2017.

Kushwaha, the Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development, though has insisted that he would work for the return of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power.

The BJP, the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the RLSP had contested 30, seven and three seats in Bihar in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls respectively, but the presence of the JD(U) in the ruling coalition has upended the equations, prompting the saffron party to work out a new formula.