Patna: The Congress is learnt to be upset about the alleged raw deal it has got from Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD in the seat-sharing arrangement in Bihar for the Lok Sabha polls. The RJD has dumped unwinnable seats on the Congress while denying it seats where it could have better prospects, it has been alleged.
The two parties are allies in the Mahagathbandhan that also comprises the Left Front in Bihar, and are also part of the INDIA bloc at the national level.
The Congress has been given nine of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats — the same number it contested in the 2019 polls. But there are hardly any celebrations.
“We got the seats we did not ask for. We did not get the ones we had asked for. We had not asked for Patna Sahib or Maharajganj,” Congress leader Nikhil Kumar — a former Delhi Police chief who has also served as Aurangabad MP and governor of Nagaland and Kerala — told ThePrint Friday.
He said the Congress had carried out an independent survey and identified nine seats it would have done well in. “We had our own analysis on the basis of the composition of constituencies. My parliamentary seat of Aurangabad (Kumar won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from this constituency) was one of them. But my seat hardly matters. The seat-sharing formula will not help the Congress,” he asserted.
The long-awaited seat-sharing formula of the INDIA alliance in Bihar was announced Friday — two days after the deadline to file nomination papers for the first phase of the polls. Voting will take place in the state in all seven phases, from 19 April to 1 June.
The names of the constituencies and the alliance partners who would contest in them were declared, but the press conference in Patna Friday came to an abrupt end when journalists asked questions about the fate of aspiring Congress candidates — Nikhil Kumar from Aurangabad, Kanhaiya Kumar from Begusarai and Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, from Purnia.
Aurangabad goes to the polls in the first phase on 19 April. Once called the ‘Chittorgarh of Bihar’ because of the dominance of Rajputs, the seat has been a fiefdom of Nikhil Kumar’s family. His late father, former Bihar chief minister S.N. Sinha, was MP from Aurangabad, and so was Kumar’s late wife, Shyama Singh.
The BJP has fielded its sitting MP, Sushil Kumar Singh, for the third consecutive time. Instead of the Congress’s Kumar, the RJD has fielded its own candidate, former Janata Dal (United) MLA Abhay Kushwaha.
Talks on seat-sharing between the Congress and RJD started in January this year. “I was not in the talks. But I can say those involved could not convince the RJD about the party’s (Congress) viewpoints,” Kumar said.
According to the agreement between the parties, the RJD will contest on 26 seats, the Congress in nine, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in three and the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in one each.
The seats allotted to the Congress are Maharajganj, Patna Sahib, Kishanganj, Sasaram (reserved), Katihar, Muzaffarpur, West Champaran, Samastipur and Bhagalpur.
Congress leaders said that the party does not have “viable” candidates for Patna Sahib, Maharajganj or West Champaran. Former Lok Sabha Speaker and party leader Meira Kumar, who was MP from Sasaram, has refused to contest the polls citing to her age.
The party leaders also said they were interested in a seat in Mithilanchal to lure Maithil Brahmins back into the fold, but the idea was turned down by the RJD.
RJD leader and former deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav has ruled out any reconsideration of the seat allocations.
“The talks on seat sharing have been going on since January and every detail has been covered,” he said to mediapersons Friday after returning from Delhi, asserting that Bihar would yield “unexpected results”.
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The Purnia fiasco
Immediately after the announcement of the seat-sharing formula, there was a revolt of sorts as Pappu Yadav said he would contest from Purnia and declared that it was his life mission to re-establish the Congress in the state.
Yadav was a three-term MP from Purnia in the 1990s and early 2000s as an Independent and member of the Samajwadi Party. He later joined the RJD and was elected as Madhepura MP on its ticket twice but was expelled from the party in 2015. He then formed his own party, which he merged with the Congress last week.
The Congress, however, has indicated it would not give him an official ticket.
“We cannot stop him from fighting independently. But we will not be giving him a ticket as it would strain the alliance with the RJD,” a senior Congress leader told ThePrint.
The RJD has fielded former JD(U) MLA Bima Bharti from Purnia.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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