Bihar Assembly Election: Congress to contest 61 seats, faces INDIA bloc allies RJD, CPI in key constituencies
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has also announced its list of 143 candidates for the Bihar assembly polls, five of them would contest against nominees of the other INDIA bloc constituents.
Bihar Assembly Election: The Congress has decided to contest 61 seats in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections nine fewer than the number it contested five years ago but will face INDIA bloc allies, including the RJD and the CPI, in several constituencies, a leader of the opposition alliance said on Monday.
Vaishali, Lalganj, Kahalgaon, Rajapakad, and Rosera are among the seats where Congress and RJD candidates will go head-to-head, while in Bachwara, the Congress nominee will be up against a CPI candidate.
Bihar Congress On Seat Sharing
A senior Congress leader told PTI, “One can’t deny the fact that our top leadership failed to assess the ground situation and gave tickets to several candidates who did not deserve.”
He also said, “Take the example of the Barabigha assembly, Congress nominee Gajanand Prasad Sahi lost the assembly polls in 2020 with a margin of less than 200 votes and this time he was not given a ticket.”
The Congress leader also claimed that former MLA Amit Kumar Tunna from Riga and Jayesh Mangalam Singh from Bagaha have been given tickets by the party this time, even though they lost the last assembly polls with a huge margin of more than 25,000 votes.
The RJD list put paid to rumours that the party was going to contest the Kutumba seat, currently held by state Congress president Rajesh Kumar Ram.
RJD On Seat-sharing Arrangement
Commenting on the stalemate over the seat-sharing arrangement among INDIA bloc constituents, RJD state unit spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwary told PTI, “Alliance partners of the INDIA bloc must understand our compulsions. The RJD is the party which contests only in Bihar and neighbouring states. We don’t demand seats in southern or other states from our partners. We are the biggest party, we deserve to contest the maximum number of seats in Bihar.”
He confirmed that there are “certain seats where the Congress is contesting against RJD and CPI candidates, and the grand old party should withdraw their candidates there”.
The 243-member Bihar assembly will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11, and counting of votes will take place on November 14.
The filing of the nomination papers for the first phase of polls already closed on October 17, while the last date for submitting such documents for the second round will end on Monday.
It may be recalled that veteran Congress leader Tariq Anwar recently expressed his bewilderment over the manner in which candidates were being selected by the party.
“One is unable to see any uniform criterion. Many candidates who had lost in the previous elections by a margin of a few hundred votes have been dropped. On the other hand, some others who were trounced have been considered this time,” Anwar, who represents Katihar Lok Sabha seat , had told reporters.
(With Inputs From PTI)
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