With the INDIA bloc not being able to work out a seat-sharing formula for Bihar Assembly elections, the top leadership of Congress and RJD will meet in Delhi on Monday to iron out issues over five seats. Another alliance leader, Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), is also in Delhi to press his demand, but an RJD leader claimed there was a “trust dedicit” when it came to him.
While the NDA announced its seat-sharing formula on Sunday, the INDIA bloc members are still holding talks and finding it hard to accommodate smaller allies in the Mahagathbandhan. The Opposition alliance is likely to announce the seat-sharing on Monday.
Sources said Bihar’s Leader of Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav will meet Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and LoP Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Monday afternoon. “A meeting of the top leaders is supposed to take place on Monday. We should have a decision soon,” said a source.
RJD chief and former CM Lalu Prasad, his wife and Rabri Devi, also an ex-CM, and Tejashwi arrived in Delhi on Sunday for a court hearing in the alleged land for job scam on Monday.
VIP chief Sahani is also in Delhi for seat-sharing talks. “Sahani has been adamant on his demand of 25 seats, but we can give him 10-12 seats as the three Left allies (CPI, CPI-M, CPIML-Liberation) also have to be given a respectable number of seats. There is also a trust deficit with Sahani, whether in pre-poll or post-poll situation,” said an RJD leader.
Sources said the Left parties, mainly CPI(ML) Liberation, want more seats than last time. The CPI(ML-Liberation) had contested 19 seats and won 12 of them in 2020.
The INDIA bloc has failed to finalise a formula so far due to disagreements over five seats — Baisi (Purnea), Bahadurganj (Kishanganj), Raniganj (Araria), Kahalgaon (Bhagalpur), and Saharsa — according to highly placed sources.
In 2020, the RJD contested Raniganj, Saharsa and Baisi, while Kahalgaon and Bahadurganj went to the Congress. Neither of the two parties won these seats.
Sources said while the RJD wants the Congress to give up Kahalgaon and Bahadurganj, the latter wants Raniganj, Saharsa and Baisi in return. “Negotiations have gone on for hours, but there are five seats where the RJD and the Congress are still struggling to reach a consensus. No party wants to concede even a single seat at this point as the allies have increased and the number of seats for every party will go down,” said a source who is part of the parleys between the two sides.
Of the 243 in Bihar Assembly, the Congress is likely to contest between 55 to 60 seats and has already finalised candidates for 25. Those on the list include 15 of the Congress’s 17 sitting MLAs, said sources. The Congress had won 19 of the 70 seats it contested in the 2020 Bihar elections.
In the last Assembly elections, the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and Left had given a tough fight to the NDA and won 110 seats with 37.23% of the total votes, just 0.03% shy of the NDA’s 37.26%.
