BIG BATTLE FOR SEAT SHARING IN THE NDA

Even a lesser Nitish is more equal than others. BJP has its own ambitions. So does Chirag. The NDA frets at the math

- By Amitabh Srivastava

AT 74, NITISH KUMAR SHOWS NO SIGN OF HIS zest for office waning. It's as if time's not passed on: his welfare bonanzas cue that the CM sees the coming assembly poll only as a way station on an endless road. But his kingly caravan is as if on the top tier of Patna's new double decker flyover—there's a surge beneath him, and new cracks on the macadam ahead. Smooth passage will need a math problem to be solved. It's a beguiling one: how to carve up Bihar's 243 seats among the NDA friends.