Congress-RJD seat sharing pact set to be finalised

Congress wants 10 seats, RJD wants to give it 5.

The seat sharing deal between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress in Bihar is going through its final phase, with the latter getting 6 Lok Sabha seats including Kishanganj. The seat is held by the party’s lone MP from Bihar, Mohammad Jawed.

The Congress has, according to sources, handed over to the RJD chief, a list of ten seats it wants to contest from, out of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. These seats include Aurangabad, Nawada, Sasaram, Purnia, Katihar, Kishanganj, Bettiah, Samastipur, Supaul and Motihari.

However, the final decision is to be taken by the RJD chief, Lalu Yadav. A Congress spokesperson said, “The RJD was giving us five seats, but we had put forward a list of 10 seats. Now Laluji will take the final call and there is high probability that we will get more than five seats. This will be announced soon.”

In 2019, the BJP had won the maximum number of seats at 17, followed by its ally JDU led by Nitish at 16. Out of the remaining seven seats, six were won by Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Ram Vilas Paswan and the remaining one was won by the Congress. RJD was reduced to zero from the four seats it had won in 2014.

A political observer said, “The I.N.D.I alliance has got a very low chance to make a dent in the seat count of the NDA as of now. That is the perception. However, there is another argument that Nitish’s frequent flipflops have angered a chunk of voters who may not vote for the NDA. If that happens then the opposition alliance may have the chance to reach double digits. Else they will crumble to around four seats.”