Patna: The issue of seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls is unlikely to come up for discussion in the meeting of the Janata Dal United state executive scheduled for September 16.

Party sources have hinted that chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is the JDU national president, will take the final call on this issue. The party, which is part of the BJP-led NDA in Bihar, seemed confident of working out an amicable solution on seat sharing at the right time.

"During our national executive meet held in July this year, the party had authorised Nitish Kumar to take the final call on issues related to alliance and seat-sharing. Hence, we don't hope to discuss this issue during the state executive meet," a JDU functionary told The Telegraph.

He said the daylong meeting was expected to focus on issues concerning the organisational expansion and strengthening the grassroots organisation to ensure better mobilisation of JDU supporters in the general election.

"Mobilising our supporters and bringing them to polling booths is a big challenge for us and with the number of polling booths going up, our task has become tougher. The state executive meet would discuss strategies to deal with this issue," said the JDU leader.

In the previous Lok Sabha elections, Bihar had 62,780 polling booths. Now the number has gone up to 72,227 owing to revised parameters for number of voters per polling booth in wake of compulsory use of voter verifiable paper audit trail with every electronic voting machine. Earlier, the maximum number of voters per booth was 1,600, which has now been brought down to 1,400.

Amid its preparations for the general election, the JDU hopes for an amicable solution over seat-sharing.

party insider said: "The BJP has accepted the seven resolves of the state government, which is the brainchild of our leader Nitish Kumar. It also has no problem in keeping Nitish Kumar as the NDA's face in the state. Moreover, it has always stood with us on the governance issue. Hence, we expect the party to give us a respectable share of seats."

He said instead of having any problem with the JDU, the BJP leadership might face stress from the Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP while taking the final call on seat-sharing.

"Recently, Kushwaha said some people from the NDA didn't want Narendra Modi to be the next PM. He was either raising finger at us or was against the LJP.

"It is now up to the BJP to decide who are the troublemakers in the alliance," added the JDU insider.