New Delhi, PatnaOctober 17, 2025 07:12 PM IST
First published on: Oct 17, 2025 at 06:15 PM IST
Amid the continued confusion in the Mahagathbandhan, the Congress had managed to take three seats that its allies had contested five years ago. This comes, even as, under pressure from ally RJD, the party on Friday did not field the leader who had organised the rally in August at which an offensive comment was made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, instead giving the ticket to a nominee of its alliance partner.
The three seats in the list of 49 released are Biharsharif in Nalanda district, where RJD’s Sunil Kumar lost to BJP’s Dr Sunil Kumar by 15,102 votes; Kumhrar in Patna, where the RJD’s Dharmendra Kumar lost to the BJP’s Arun Kumar Sinha by 26,463 votes; and Bachhwara (Begusarai district) seat the where CPI’s Awadhesh Kumar Rai lost to the BJP’s Surendra Mehata by 484 votes. However, the CPI has fielded Rai from the seat and as a result, there will be a “friendly fight”. While the Congress has named a total of 49 candidates till now, it is looking to contest at least 60-61 constituencies while the RJD is not willing to give more than 54-55 seats.
The RJD has not won Biharsharif since 2000, with the seat going to the JD(U) in 2005, 2010, 2015, and the BJP in 2020, while Kumhrar is also not a great trade-off for the Congress as Sinha has won it in the last three elections and it is considered a BJP stronghold.
Highly placed Congress sources on Thursday night said seat-sharing talks were stuck as the party was trying to get more “winnable seats” where the caste combinations were in its favour and last year’s Lok Sabha elections had seen a close contest.
The RJD also did not officially release its first list of candidates despite Friday being the last date for nomination for the first phase. For the last few days. Congress and RJD sources have been saying that a seat-sharing formula would be “released soon”, but despite the deadline being here, there is still no clarity with allies having differences over some seats.
Decoding the Congress list
In the list of 48 the Congress released late Thursday are 27 constituencies where the party stood second in 2020, when it contested 70 seats and won 19. Another four seats are ones where the Congress stood third, while 14 sitting MLAs have been renominated by the party in the upcoming elections.
Of the 48, 23 candidates have been repeated, including two women MLAs. There are a total of 5 women candidates, including three from the Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. They are Punam Paswan (Korha-SC), Sarita Devi (Sonbarsha-SC), Pratima Kumari (Raja Pakar-SC), Amita Bhushan (Begusarai), and Nitu Kumari (Hisua).
Half of the candidates (19) in the 38 general seats are forward castes, and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) have only been given 9 tickets. This places in stark contrast the INDIA bloc and Congress’s EBC push with the Atipichhda Nyay Sankalp, a separate resolution for EBCs that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav released last month.
Among the sitting MLAs re-nominated are Ajeet Sharma (Bhagalpur), Shakeel Ahmad Khan (Kadwa), Manohar Prasad Singh (Manihari – ST), Bijendra Chaudhary (Muzaffarpur), Pratima Kumari Das (Raja Pakar, SC-reserved), Sanjay Kumar Tiwari (Buxar), Vishwanath Ram (Rajpur – SC), Rajesh Ram (Kutumba – SC), Santosh Mishra (Kargahar), Nitu Kumari (Hisua), and Anand Shankar Singh (Aurangabad).
Khagaria MLA Chhatrapati Yadav is the sole legislator the Congress has dropped, with the ticket going to All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Chandan Yadav.
There are four Muslim candidates in the list. They are Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan, who has been re-nominated from Kadwa, Wasi Ahmed from Bettiah, Prof Maswar Alam from Bahadurganj, and Omair Khan from Biharsharif. Sources said the decision not to give too many tickets to Muslims was based on the party’s apprehension of “polarisation” and the “confidence” that Muslims have no choice but to vote for the INDIA bloc.
The Congress also buckled under RJD pressure and decided to drop its choice of candidate, Mohammed Naushad Alam, in Jale in Darbhanga district. The Indian Express had reported on Thursday that the Congress was keen on fielding Alam, who had organised the rally in August during which an alleged slur was hurled at the PM. With the RJD insisting that the Congress drop Alam, as it may provide fodder to the BJP, the Congress on Friday afternoon named RJD leader Rishi Mishra as the candidate from the seat, making him the party’s 49th candidate.
Sources said Alam has an arrest warrant in the case over the alleged slur against Modi and could have been arrested had he contested the election. With all these reasons in mind, the Congress dropped Alam and gave a ticket to Mishra on its symbol.