Only two persons — BJP president Amit Shah and chief minister Nitish Kumar, also the JDU national president — know details of the NDA’s seat-sharing arrangement in Bihar for the Lok Sabha elections.

The deal will be announced soon. The rest, sources in both parties said, was all speculation, as even senior leaders do not know about the actual deal. “I am saying this with one thousand per cent certainty that nobody in my party, except Nitish, knows about the seat-sharing deal,” a senior JDU leader told The Telegraph. “He and Shah were the only leaders who had a chat on the issue and no other leader was present at the time.”

The senior politician said the seat-sharing deal will be announced either by Nitish alone, or jointly by top leaders from the JDU, BJP and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP.

Nitish had during the JDU state executive meet last Sunday told his party leaders that an “honourable” seat-sharing deal had been inked and would be announced later. Sources said he made the announcement before his party leaders after two rounds of talks with Shah, but had to go in for a third meeting earlier this week to iron out a few issues.

Asked about the seat-sharing deal, JDU general secretary and former diplomat Pavan K. Varma told The Telegraph: “The deal would be announced soon,… by Nitish Kumar.” He said his party’s position, status and stature of its leader in Bihar have been considered in the deal.

Though the JDU general secretary refused to put a date on by when Nitish would make the announcement, sources in the party said if it’s not done in the next two days, it would be delayed by another 15 days or so.

“The 15-day Pitripaksh period begins from Tuesday. It’s not considered a good time to start anything new or make any announcement. If the seat deal is not announced by Monday, it will be done after October 9, when the inauspicious period ends,” another senior JDU leader said.

NDA allies JDU, the BJP and the LJP are also watching another ally — Union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP — with interest because it has been sitting on the fence and might break away from the alliance because of its ambitions.

“Our party, the BJP and the LJP all are saying ‘all is well’. But the RLSP is either voicing notes of dissent or at times saying nothing,” JDU spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar said.

“It is time RLSP clears its stand. This applies not only to Kushwaha, but also to Arun Kumar, the dissident RLSP MP from Jehanabad, because he has been demanding President’s Rule in Bihar.”

The RLSP has three Lok Sabha MPs and it is certain it won’t be offered any more seats because Kushwaha has played his cards too early and too fast, thereby losing the bargaining chip.

“The RJD or the UPA are wary of Kushwaha’s often-changing stance and will never project him as a chief ministerial candidate,” a senior BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity.

“He has made noises against the NDA. He has no bargaining chip with him now. If he goes, the seats might get shared among the three other parties. If he remains, he will have to be satisfied with at most three seats.”

Another possibility is of Kushwaha going solo, and cutting into OBC and EBC votes of the other parties.