New Delhi, Sept 12: The NDA, expected to finalise and announce its seat distribution formula for the Bihar Assembly elections this evening, was up against opposition from the newest constituent in the coalition, Jitan Ram Manjhi.

The Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular president and former Bihar chief minister was reportedly furious when TV channels claimed this morning that the BJP was "willing" to give Manjhi just 15 of the 243 Assembly seats and let five of his legislators who had joined the BJP contest on its lotus symbol.

An aide of Manjhi maintained that "forget 15", his leader had asked for 47 seats but the BJP had "grudgingly" conceded "only" 27. "This is most unfair, keeping my leader's popularity, caste base and stature in mind," the aide said.

He warned that if there was no breakthrough by tonight, Manjhi was leaving for Patna on Sunday. "He will speak to his workers and then think of fighting solo," claimed the aide.

Manjhi, who is staying at Bihar Bhavan, refused to come on the line.

BJP general secretary in charge of Bihar, Bhupender Yadav, sought to give an impression that things were staying the course. "Everything is fine. We are completing a round of confabulations with our Bihar leaders to tie up the loose ends before making an announcement," he said.

Among the Bihar leaders who called on the BJP president Amit Shah as well as the general secretary (organisation), Ramlal today were Sushil Modi, Ashwani Choubey, Giriraj Singh, C.P. Thakur and Nand Kishore Yadav.

It is learnt that Shah and Ramlal ran through the seats earmarked for the BJP's allies with the Bihar contingent to ensure that no "errors" occurred in the allocation. "We are going about the exercise in a scientific way instead of randomly ticking off seats so that each NDA constituent gets a maximum of winnable ones," a state leader said.

The word from the BJP this afternoon was the talks were going on swimmingly and Shah was set to make a declaration late evening in the company of his allies. Indeed, central minister Ananth Kumar, who is playing a key part in the negotiations, told journalists: "Talks were successful. In the presence of the BJP president, we will declare everything."

However, Ananth's claim was belied shortly after Manjhi had publicly ticked off TV reporters for putting out "false" figures of seats on his behalf.

Bhupender, accompanied by central minister Dharmendra Pradhan who is also involved in the election preparations, rushed to pacify Manjhi. The leader was persuaded to meet Shah. After the meeting, he told reporters: "Wait for tomorrow to hear from me."

A source close to Upendra Kushwaha, who helms the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, another NDA partner, admitted: "Things have got stuck thanks to the Manjhi-BJP face-off. But I do not think Manjhi will walk out of the alliance at this stage. Every party wants a maximum share of seats so the process is bound to take time."

Shah departs for Mysore tomorrow morning and is due back late evening. BJP sources said he was keen to wrap up the talks late tonight but the Manjhi camp emphasised that it was "pointless" to hold more meetings with the BJP.# Sources said while the BJP and LJP have finalised their seat-sharing arrangements, Manjhi is demanding more seats.

A HAMS spokesman said they would not accept a single seat less than that offered to LJP. "We would not take seats less in number than that given to LJP," the spokesman said, adding that they would wait till tomorrow for BJP to offer a "respectable" number of seats to HAM. "We will have to reconsider alliance with BJP if the party is not given respectable number of seats," spokesman Danish Rizwan said.

Union minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan had earlier met Amit Shah along with his son Chirag Paswan and authorised Shah to declare the seat-sharing arrangement.

Sources close to him said the deal with his outfit has been finalised and there is no confusion over it.

Paswan, who was in Bihar, arrived in the national capital late in the evening for declaration of seats, which was however held back. BJP has not declared its chief ministerial candidate for Bihar yet.