Three junior partners in the Bihar NDA are competing for a “respectable” number of seats to contest in the upcoming Assembly polls, piling pressure on the BJP and the JDU ahead of ticket-distribution talks.

Of the 243 Assembly seats, the BJP and the JDU are likely to contest over 100 each and distribute the rest among the three smaller allies — the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), HAM (Secular) and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha.

As the BJP core committee geared up for a strategy meeting on Bihar in Delhi on Wednesday, HAM (Secular) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi publicly staked claim to at least 20 seats, stressing the need for the NDA leaders to show “sympathy” towards his party. Manjhi holds the crucial micro, small and medium enterprises ministry in the Narendra Modi government.

“The demand of our supporters and workers is that we be allotted a dignified number of seats. If the NDA has sympathy for us in their hearts, they should give us at least 20 seats to contest,” Manjhi told reporters. The HAM (Secular) has one member (Manjhi himself) in the Lok Sabha and four MLAs in the Bihar Assembly.

The HAM (Secular) draws strength primarily from the Musahar caste Dalits in the central Bihar districts.

The two others, the LJP (RV) and the RLM, have not aired their demands publicly but are learnt to be pressing for a “respectable” allocation, stressing that the NDA’s prospects would be hurt if the aspirations of their supporters were ignored.

The LJP (RV), headed by food processing minister Chirag Paswan, has been particularly ambitious. Chirag, who has been trying to project himself as the next-generation face of Bihar, has demanded 40 seats, sources said. While there is no chance of his party getting such a big share, the move is seen as a pressure tactic to extract the highest seat share after the two dominant partners.

“Chirag is claiming that his party commands the largest support base on the ground after the BJP and the JDU and is demanding at least 30 seats,” a BJP leader said.

The LJP (RV) is primarily known as a party of the Paswans among the Dalits.

The third leader in the troika is RLM chief Upendra Kushwaha. He had lost the last Lok Sabha polls as an NDA candidate, but the BJP got him elected to the Rajya Sabha. He claims to be a key leader of the backward Kushwahas and is learnt to be eyeing a double-digit seat share in Bihar. The BJP may not oblige him as the saffron party has its own Kushwaha face in deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary, who is unofficially being projected as a CM-face as well.