5 Constituencies At Centre Of RJD, Congress's Bihar Seat Struggle: Sources

Seat-sharing talks in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) for next month's Bihar assembly elections appear to be facing some headwinds as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress are jostling over five seats. 

According to sources, the seats over which the allies are yet to reach a consensus are Baisi, Bahadurganj, Raniganj, Kahlgaon and Saharsa. Interestingly, the Congress had contested the Kahalgaon and Bahadurpur seats last time and the RJD fought in Saharsa, Baisi and Raniganj but both parties failed to secure any of them.

The Congress, which has given two seats from its quota to the India Inclusive Party (IIP), initially decided to hand over the Saharsa seat to its ally (fielding IP Gupta) for the polls. The RJD, however, has now staked claim on the seat, the sources said.

In the last elections, Alok Ranjan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now a part of the ruling alliance in Bihar, defeated RJD's Lovely Anand by 20,000 votes.

Similarly, the Congress had staked claim on Kahlgaon seat - that was mostly won by the party in previous elections. Last year, the Congress contested but the BJP won the seat. The RJD, the sources said, has sought to contest from this seat but the Congress is unwilling to part with it. 

Besides, the Congress seeks to field its party candidates from Baisi and Bahadurganj of Seemanchal, citing its performance in the Seemanchal region in the Lok Sabha elections last year. 

The Congress has three MPs, including Pappu Yadav, in Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnia - all of them in Seemanchal region. 

In the 2024 state elections, the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won the Baisi and Bahadurpur seats. The MLAs, however, later jumped ship to the RJD.

The sources said that the Congress believes there is some form of opposition against the two MLAs. The two seats should, therefore, be handed over to the party on the basis of their performance in the Lok Sabha elections. 

The AIMIM on Saturday said it has been spurned by the INDIA bloc in Bihar, and that the party is now planning to contest around 100 seats in the upcoming elections, five times the number it had fought in the last elections.

The sources said the RJD is reluctant to part with the Raniganj seat, despite losing in the 2020 elections. 

Leaders from both sides are holding continuous rounds of meetings over the concerned seats to arrive at an agreement, the sources said. 

The two allies are already facing tensions over the opposition grouping's choice of the chief ministerial candidate. The RJD has been declaring its leader, Tejashwi Yadav, as the face but recently, Congress observer and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said it was just a part of their ally's strategy. 

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11 and votes will be counted on November 14.

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