As seat-sharing negotiations for the Bihar Assembly elections progress within the Opposition Mahagathbandhan, the Congress’s demand last week for a balance in the distribution of “good” and “bad” seats has made talks trickier.
At a press conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, the party’s Bihar in-charge, Krishna Allavaru, said there are “good” and “bad” seats in every state. “And it shouldn’t be that one party gets all the good seats, and another gets bad seats. In seat-sharing, there should be a balance between the good and bad seats,” Allavaru said.
The seats the Congress categorises as “good” are where the party either won or lost by a small margin in the 2020 Assembly elections. “Our claim will be on all those 19 seats the Congress won in 2020. And on those seats where the party candidates lost by a margin of around 5,000 votes. In the current atmosphere, when Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Adhikar Yatra has energised INDIA bloc workers across Bihar, we are sure that we can win such seats with the support of allies,” a party leader said.
The leader added, “The distribution should not be so as to give the Congress only those seats where the RJD and other allies were not able to win in past elections. Also, it should not happen that one party gets all those seats where social equations are in favour of the Mahagathbandhan.”
Congress’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ seats in Bihar
In the 2020 polls, Congress had contested 70 seats, winning just 19. In the 2015 Assembly polls, in comparison, the party had contested 41 seats and won 27. This time, too, the Congress is pressing for 70 seats, particularly in the wake of Rahul Gandhi’s recent yatra.
Sources said that in the Congress’s “good” seats are 27 seats out of the 70 it contested in 2020 – including the 19 it won, and the eight where the party lost by around 5,000 votes.
Going by the Congress’s criteria, the RJD can count 92 as “good” seats, the highest among the Mahagathbandhan partners. In 2020, the RJD had contested 144 seats, winning 75 and finishing runner-up by less than 5,000 votes in 17 seats.
RJD’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ seats in Bihar
The CPI(M-L)(L), the Mahagathbandhan ally which won 12 of the 19 seats it contested, lost just two seats in its kitty by margins under 5,000 votes. It contested five more seats, where its margin of loss was greater. The CPI(M) and CPI – the other Left parties in the Mahagathbandhan – each won two seats and lost one seat each by less than 5,000 votes.
In the 2020 polls which the Mahagathbandhan contested together, the Congress was allocated 32 of the 41 seats it had contested in the 2015 elections. Of these 32 seats, the Congress won 11 in 2020. However, out of the 38 additional seats the party got in 2020, it won only eight seats.
Four seats that the Congress won in 2015 were allotted to its allies – the RJD, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(M-L)(L) – in 2020.
The RJD gave up 10 sitting seats for its allies in 2020. Of these 10 seats, the CPI(M-L)(L) contested five and won three, the CPI contested three and won two, and the Congress contested two and won one.
This time the Mahagathbandhan also contains the Hemant Soren-led JMM and former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras’s Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP), putting its total constituents at eight – including existing allies RJD, Congress, Left parties, and Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP).
Congress secretary Shahnawaz Alam, who has been assigned Bihar, said, “Our Mahagathbandhan is strong, where the ultimate goal is to defeat the NDA. Sometimes compromises are made to achieve such goals. That is not an issue.”
A senior RJD leader declined to comment on seat-distribution, citing ongoing discussions among the allies. “In 2020, the RJD gave its various sitting seats to allies, because of which those RJD leaders who were preparing to contest in those seats got upset and worked against the alliance candidate, leading to their defeat. Had the RJD contested all its sitting seats in 2020, the Mahagathbandhan would have won more seats,” a party leader said.