Reflecting the confusion and the tussle within, the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in Bihar failed to announce a seat-sharing pact Friday as nominations closed for the first of the two-phase Assembly elections in the state.
Partners of the alliance filed nomination papers for all 121 seats going to polls in the first phase – the total strength of the Bihar House is 243 – while talks continued to end the deadlock over seats. The last date for filing nominations for the remaining 122 seats in the second phase is Monday.
The Mahagathbandhan, comprising the RJD, Congress, CPI (ML-L), CPI (M), CPI and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), still has to resolve the fight for seats in over a dozen constituencies.
While the alliance is still intact, parties have unilaterally released their lists. Sources in the RJD told The Indian Express that senior leader Suresh Paswan, state party vice-president, will contest the Kutumba seat where the Congress has fielded its Bihar unit president Rajesh Ram.
“There will be at least 7-8 friendly fights on seats, and it will include Kutumba where Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Ram has already been given a ticket by his party,” a top source in the RJD said.
Both the RJD and Congress have also fielded candidates in the Vaishali and Lalganj constituencies. While the Congress has nominated Sanjeev Singh from Vaishali, the RJD has put up Abhay Kushwaha on the same seat. In Lalganj, the Congress has fielded Aditya Raj while the RJD has asked Shivani Singh, daughter of former Lalganj MLA Munna Shukla, to contest.
The Congress, which unilaterally released a list of 48, has handed tickets in another five constituencies – Kahalgaon (Praveen Kushwaha), Pranpur (Touqir Alam), Jale (Rishi Mishra), Chainpur (Achala Singh) and Gaya Town (Mohan Srivastava). The RJD, however, is not willing to give up its claim to the Kahalgaon seat though it has been a traditional Congress seat.
The CPI (ML-Liberation) has also unilaterally announced 14 candidates for the first phase. The VIP, which is still insisting that its leader Mukesh Sahani be projected as a Deputy CM candidate, has so far got 14 seats.
VIP spokesperson Debjyoti told The Indian Express: “We will contest 15 seats. Of these, 14 seats have been decided. Our seats include Alamnagar, Gaurabouram, Darbhanga Town, Kusheshwar Sthan, Aurai, Baruraj, Kesaria, Sikti, Nirmali, Katihar, Gopalpur, Bihpur and Lauria.”
Four VIP candidates have filed nominations for seats going to polls in the first phase. Sahani’s brother Santosh Sahani has filed the nomination papers for the Gaurabouram seat in Darbhanga while the VIP chief himself is likely to contest in the second phase. Of the six candidates announced so far by VIP, four belong to the EBC Mallah (boatmen) community.
The RJD, which is yet to release its first list, has reportedly handed tickets to 48 candidates so far. It has fielded popular Bhojpuri singer Khesari Lal Yadav from Chhapra. RJD sources said some of its candidates include Tejashwi Prasad Yadav (Raghopur), Osama Shahab (Raghunathpur), Bhai Virendra (Maner), Bogo Singh (Matihani), Rambriksh Sada (Alauli), Alok Mehta (Ujiyarpur), Lalit Yadav (Darbhanga), Mukesh Roshan (Mahua), Awadh Bihari Choudhary (Siwan), Shahnawaz Alam (Jokihat) and Akhatarul Islam (Samastipur), Shakti Singh Yadav (Hilsa), Shailendra Pratap Singh (Taraiya), Rahul Tiwari (Shahpur) and Chandrashekhar (Madhepura). Shantanu Bundela, son of former MP Sharad Yadav, is upset at not being given a ticket from Madhepura or any other constituency. The list of 48 has 14 Yadav and six Muslim candidates.
In New Delhi, sources told The Indian Express that the RJD will contest a total of 130-135 seats, while the Congress is likely to get around 60 seats, the VIP around 15 seats, and the Left parties will get 28-29 seats. While the CPI (ML-L) will contest 18, CPI will get six, and CPI (M) four seats.
Congress sources said the differences between the allies are over some “quality” seats from where the Congress wants to contest.
Alliance insiders conceded that there will be a few “friendly fights” on some seats including the Bachhwara seat where Congress candidate Shiv Prakash Garib Das will be up against CPI’s Awadhesh Kumar Rai.
Sources said talks between the VIP and RJD almost collapsed Wednesday night and Sahani even planned to call a press conference in Patna Thursday morning to announce his exit from the Mahagathbandhan.
“When it was learnt that Sahani was on the verge of exiting the alliance and had planned a press conference in Patna on Thursday morning, Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI (ML-L) intervened and made a call late at night to Rahul Gandhi. Sahani’s complaint was that he was not being spoken to by the RJD. Dipankar then spoke to Rahul Gandhi and asked him to speak to Sahani. Gandhi spoke to Sahani and placated him and also asked him to write a letter with all his grievances. It was after these backchannel talks between the three allies that Sahani decided to stay back in the alliance,” the source said.
In a handwritten letter to Rahul Gandhi, Sahani wrote that it was spread in “national news that Mukesh Sahani (patron VIP) is not participating in seat sharing meetings”.
“It is unfortunate to say that… was agreed between us that the VIP will be given 35 Assembly seats, then the figure came down to 25 and finally to 18+2,” Sahani said. The “issue was not the number of seats”, he said, and that he was “ready” to go with any number decided by the alliance.
“For me, it is a matter of ideology… for the socially deprived and backward section of the society,” wrote Sahani in his letter to Gandhi, seeking his “intervention” in the matter.
