Patna: The NDA in Bihar is game for an early understanding on seat-sharing for the coming general elections. A day after chief minister Nitish Kumar said the proposal was likely to come from the BJP in 4-5 weeks, BJP leaders on Tuesday hinted that the party agreed with the idea of having an early discussion on this contentious issue.

"The sooner this issue gets resolved the better for NDA constituents, as they would get more time to prepare for the elections," a BJP insider considered close to the party central leadership told The Telegraph.

The BJP leader said the discussion on seat-sharing was likely to commence sometime in August and things were expected to be finalised by November.

"The three months will go into giving a final shape to the deal as four parties - BJP, JDU, LJP and RLSP - are involved and one cannot expect such a contentious issue to be sorted out in just one sitting."

None from the BJP camp was, however, willing to reveal the likely number of seats the party would offer to NDA constituents. "Such a decision will be taken by our central leadership. Top leaders from all constituents will sit together to thrash out such an issue, which is bound to witness claims and counter-claims expected to be made by all stakeholders," said another senior BJP leader.

He also said that the party's central leadership had started collecting feedback on all the 40 seats in Bihar before putting forward its proposal to the constituents.

"Apart from taking feedback from state leaders, our central leaders also have a mechanism to get direct feedback from the ground. They will take a call on the basis of available information," said the leader.

Sharing details about the style of functioning of the current party leadership, the BJP leader said: "When Narendra Modi was Gujarat chief minister he used to get surveys done on all seats and several sitting candidates were changed on the basis of inputs received from the ground."

While giving insight into the way things were moving in the BJP on the seat-sharing issue, party leaders indicated the JDU was all set to get respectful treatment during seat-sharing talks.

"Our central leadership holds Nitish in very high esteem. This perception is also likely to be reflected during seat-sharing talks," said a BJP leader and added that the party stood for keeping its alliance intact even if some sacrifices had to be made to be more accommodative towards alliance partners.