‘Avoid Maharashtra mistake in Bihar’: Sena (UBT) MP cautions Mahagathbandhan amid seat-sharing woes

As the opposition Grand Alliance is still grappling with the seat-sharing crisis in Bihar, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi urged the parties not to repeat the mistakes made in Maharashtra over seat allocation and candidate selection.

 

Chaturvedi also urged the Mahagathbandhan to declare RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, whom she described as a “popular candidate”, as the chief ministerial nominee.

 

"The mistakes made in the Maharashtra elections, including not declaring the chief ministerial candidate, as well as disputes among the three alliance partners over seat allocation and candidate selection, should not be repeated in Bihar. Tejashwi Yadav is a very popular candidate,” she said.

 

Lavishing praise on Yadav, Chaturvedi said he is in a neck-to-neck fight with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other “so-called aspirants of chief ministership” and has done a phenomenal job when he was the deputy chief minister.

 

“So it is time that as part of the INDIA Alliance and in the spirit of it, which we came around that we should all support the party which is stronger and he would be supported, would be helped, and he would be declared as the chief ministerial candidate,” she said.

 

The Sena (UBT) MP’s word of caution came as a seat-sharing formula continued to elude the opposition bloc, with many of the parties fielding candidates against one another in several constituencies.

 

The Congress released its first list of 48 candidates on Thursday night, even before a consensus was reached in the alliance. The list included party’s sitting MLAs, including state unit chief Rajesh Ram from Kutumba seat and CLP leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan from Kadwa.

 

In the 2020 polls, the Congress had contested 70 seats and won only 19.

The Bihar assembly polls will be held on November 6 and 11, and the counting of votes will take place on November 14.

India