PATNA, Sept. 24 -- The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) has drawn up an internal formula to stake claim on constituencies where its candidates won the last Lok Sabha and Assembly seats and finished second while the NDA nominees trailed in third place during the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, a senior party functionary said on Tuesday after a meeting of its state parliamentary board in Patna. Given this formula, the LJP could stake claim on 40 Assembly seats, though Hulas Pandey, chairman of the state parliamentary board of LJP (RV), declined to specify the number of seats the party was eyeing but asserted that LJP (RV) would focus on winnable constituencies. In the 2020 polls, the undivided LJP, which contested independently, managed to win only one of the 243 seats but secured 5.6% of the vote share. It finished runner-up in nine constituencies and stood third in nearly 91 seats, causing maximum damage to the JD(U), while sparing BJP candidates in most segments by not fielding its candidates. However, in the Lok Sabha elections this year, the party won all its five seats. "Like the Lok Sabha elections, when we bagged all five seats we contested, we want to maintain a 100% strike rate in the Assembly elections too. It is not about volume, but about certainty of victory," Pandey said on the sidelines of the parliamentary board meeting at the party office on 1, Wheeler Road. He added that the party would wait for the NDA to announce its seat-sharing formula. "We discussed our strongholds and the probable candidates. Recommendations will be sent to the central parliamentary board, which will take the final call once NDA allies agree on seat-sharing," said Pandey. The LJP's performance in earlier elections will also weigh heavily in candidate selection, Pandey indicated. In 2015, when JD(U) aligned with the Grand Alliance, the LJP contested 42 seats, winning two and finishing second in 36. "We will study both the 2015 and 2020 Assembly as well as this year's Lok Sabha results before finalising our list of candidates," Pandey said, underscoring the party's intent to consolidate its strongholds while playing within the NDA framework this time. Bihar goes to polls in the next two months. The Election Commission is yet to announce the poll dates....