The nomination deadline for Bihar elections ended yesterday Friday evening. But the Grand Alliance has so far entered the electoral fray without any formal announcement of seat sharing. Technically the grand alliance is united, because joint candidates have been fielded on most of the seats, but consensus has still not been reached on many seats.
Because of this, now a situation of “friendly fight” has been created. This delay has put the Grand Alliance far behind the NDA, which had given fixed seats to each ally in time and avoided any “friendly fight”. So what was the reason that the Grand Alliance has now become “Mahadile-Bandhan”?
Is all not well in the Grand Alliance?
Everything is not looking good in the Grand Alliance. Even after the first phase of nominations was over, consensus could not be reached on at least five seats. Both Congress and RJD are claiming that everything is fine and there is no difference on seat sharing, but the reality says something else. Congress gave ticket to Aditya Kumar Raja from Lalganj seat, while RJD made Shivani Shukla its candidate from the same seat.
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Congress declared Praveen Singh Kushwaha as its candidate for Kahalgaon seat, while RJD also fielded its candidate from there. Earlier, CPI had fielded its candidate against Congress on Bachwara seat. The same situation was seen in Sikandra assembly seat also. That means, a situation has arisen in the grand alliance of contesting elections against each other.
Congress’s tough stance
Critics of Congress say that this conflict was pre-decided. About eight months ago, Bihar Congress got a new state president and in-charge. In-charge Krishna Allavaru, who is considered close to Rahul Gandhi, was adopting a strict attitude towards RJD from the beginning. He also sidelined some senior leaders of Bihar Congress, who were considered close to RJD. This made it more difficult to find a middle path during seat distribution.
According to sources, new state president Rajesh Ram, CLP leaders Shakeel Ahmed Khan and Krishna Allavaru explained to the Delhi leadership that Congress can no longer remain just a “filler party”. He said that this is an opportunity for Congress to regain its old strongholds and areas of influence.
Although the Congress accepted the proposal to reduce its number of seats from 70 to 60-61 to accommodate new allies, it refused to give up seats like Kahalgaon and Bachwada. This stubbornness became the cause of major delay and controversy in seat distribution.
Big demands of small parties
The entry of Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) in the Grand Alliance further complicated the seat distribution. Sahni used to say in every interview that his party will contest elections on 60 seats and he has been promised the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
Congress’s argument was that when VIP has neither any MP nor MLA, then how can it demand so many seats. On the other hand, CPI(ML) also rejected Tejashwi Yadav’s offer of 19 seats. He said that in 2020 he contested 19 seats and won 12, hence his performance was the best and now he is demanding more than 30 seats.
Similarly, the status of smaller allies like Indian Inclusive Party, Pashupati Paras faction and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is also not clear yet. Overall, the Grand Alliance managers failed to do proper “homework” before settling on seat sharing.
RJD’s ‘bossy’ attitude
A senior leader of the Grand Alliance says that RJD is no less responsible for this situation. RJD had contested 144 seats in the 2020 assembly elections and this time too it is claiming 130-135 seats. Congress leaders say that while they reduced their seats from 70 to around 60, RJD, which had fought twice as many seats as them last time, is reducing only 10-12 seats. This shows that RJD is behaving like a “boss” instead of playing the role of “elder brother” in the alliance. This attitude made the seat sharing agreement more difficult.
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