Congress and RJD partnered INDI alliance has sealed a seat-sharing agreement in Bihar, with the Congress party stated to contest on nine seats while the lion’s share of the seats, 26 to be precise, going to Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD.
Five of the 40 Lok Sabha seats have been allotted between three left parties, namely CPI-ML, CPI, and CPM.
RJD, Congress, and Left leaders held a joint press conference on Friday, March 29, and announced seat allocation.
Congress will be fielding candidates on seats such as Kishanganj, Muzaffarpur, Patna Sahib, and Maharajganj, the RJD will be fighting on Purnea, Hazipur, Gaya, Aurangabad, Darbhanga, Siwan, and Patliputra besides others.
CPI-ML will contest from Aarh, Karakat, and Nalanda, CPI from Begusarai, and CPM from Khagaria.
While it is a significant breakthrough for the opposition parties to come together and forge an alliance, given reports of disagreement over seat sharing between Congress and RJD as the grand old party reportedly sought more seats in the state while its alliance partner, RJD, agreeing to offer only 9 seats to them.
Congress and RJD seem to have buried the hatchet as they agreed with the formula of 9 and 26 seats each respectively.
The seat sharing sealed in Bihar underscores the predicament of the Congress party, which had to meet the demands of a relatively younger political party, RJD, and reduce itself to a single-digit party in a state, epitomising its decline from the national political landscape.
The Congress party has been forced to play second fiddle in Bihar owing to the emergence of RJD as a formidable regional force, winning 74 seats in assembly elections, second only to the BJP which had won 85 out of the 243 Vidhan Sabha seats. The Congress had bagged a paltry 17 seats, chipping away at its ability to mount a strong case for an increased number of seats for the Lok Sabha elections.
Another striking facet of the seat sharing announced by the INDI alliance in Bihar reveals that Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was hailed by the Congress IT cell members, as the next big leader from the party, may likely not be fielded by the party for the Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, Kumar was in CPI, which had fielded him from Begusarai. Kumar, however, came as a cropper against BJP’s Giriraj Singh and suffered a humiliating defeat, following which he joined the Congress party.
This year, CPI will be fielding its candidate from Begusarai, so Kumar’s candidature from the constituency is not possible unless he quits Congress and decides to fight as an independent candidate. It is also unlikely that Congress will field him from other seats in Bihar where the competition seems to be stiff from the NDA alliance, which is expected to sweep the country with over 350-390 parliamentary seats and elect Modi back to power for a third term.
The Congress had to face a similar ignominy during the seat-sharing finalisation in Uttar Pradesh, making peace with only 17 seats while Akhilesh Yadav’s party, SP, and other INDI alliance partners got the remaining 63 seats. This is a remarkable climbdown for a national party that had fielded candidates on 67 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2019. However, it is worth mentioning that 63 of the 67 candidates fielded by Congress in Uttar Pradesh in 2019 had lost their deposits.
The humiliating drubbing of 2019 is perhaps still playing on the minds of the Congress leadership, which partly explains their conservative approach to negotiating seats in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. On the contrary, PM Modi, finds himself on a stronger footing, thanks to his government’s development agenda and infrastructural advancement goals, which are bearing fruits in terms of rapid economic growth as reflected in the soaring GDP numbers among other indices. In addition to this, the ever-growing popularity of PM Modi, especially after the conclusion of the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony where he was invited as the chief Yajman.
His zero-tolerance approach to terrorism and commitment to integrate Kashmir with India with the abrogation of Article 370 have indubitably also added to his soaring nationalistic credentials, as opposed to the opposition parties who have opposed his decision, just for the sake of it, without offering cogent and cohesive reasoning.
Everywhere around the country, Congress is grappling with the challenges of mounting a credible alternative to state governments, either by the BJP or strong regional parties. In Delhi, for instance, Congress is supporting its INDI alliance partner, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, the same party that rose to power in the national capital after riding on the anti-corruption plank it had launched against the Congress party.
On March 31, the entire INDI block, including the Congress party, will convene a massive rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds to protest the arrest of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal by the ED in connection to a money laundering scandal linked to the liquor policy. Incidentally, it marks the birth anniversary of the late Sheila Dikshit, one of the most towering leaders of the Congress party who was Delhi CM for 15 years before losing to Arvind Kejriwal, who had accused her of being complicit in corruption.
This desperation demonstrates that Congress is clutching at the straws as the country gears up for the Lok Sabha elections. It won’t be a surprise if Congress ends up with the lowest tally of Lok Sabha seats this time around.
