According to sources in the BJP, Rajnath also spoke to senior party leader Arun Jaitley, who is in charge of Karnataka, and suggested that he try afresh for a deal with the NDA partner.

The sources said the latest BJP offer is for 10 Assembly seats, two more than what the Karnataka BJP leaders had offered to JD(U) general secretary Shambhu Sharan Srivastava last time.

Reacting to the upgraded BJP offer, a senior JD(U) leader told The Indian Express, “They are revising the number without any substance—none of the seats which they are adding to the initial four gives us any hope for a victory.”

Another leader saw the new overture as a ploy, meant to deny the JD(U) sufficient time to adopt BJP rejects as its candidates. The party has set a target of fighting some 100 seats in case it has to go to the polls alone.

Sources in the JD(U) said the party had based its claim for 20 seats on a certain logic. The party had asked for the five seats where JD(U) candidates had won last time. Six other constituencies in the JD(U) list had seen party nominees finish second. The rest happened to be areas where the JD(U) had a strong presence. Since the BJP had already named its candidates for 185 of the 224 constituencies, the space for the JD(U) had been already squeezed.