Bihar Mahagathbandhan Finally Seals Seat Deal; Congress Releases First List, VIP Gets 15 Seats
After weeks of tense negotiations that threatened to derail the opposition alliance in Bihar, the Mahagathbandhan has finally sealed its seat-sharing pact for the upcoming Assembly elections. The breakthrough came as the Congress released its first list of 48 candidates and Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) agreed to contest 15 seats, ending a high-stakes standoff.The crisis, which had pushed the alliance to the brink, was resolved following direct intervention from the top leadership of the Congress and other key allies.
According to the formula, the RJD will contest the lion’s share of seats, while the CPI(ML) has been allocated 20 seats and the VIP 15. The exact seat-sharing details are yet to be formally announced.The deal was clinched after a day of high drama involving Mukesh Sahani, a key leader representing the state’s significant Mallah community. Sahani, who had earlier threatened to walk out of the alliance, was convinced to stay after a crucial intervention by CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and a subsequent phone call with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
In a letter to Gandhi, Sahani dismissed reports of his exit as “misinformation” and stressed his commitment to fighting “communal and divisive forces,” stating, “Issue is not the number. I’m ready to go with any number that alliance partners decide.”Following the resolution, the Congress released its first list of 48 candidates, fielding state legislative party leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan from the Kadwa seat.
In an interesting development, the party has fielded Garib Das from Bachwara, a seat where its INDIA bloc partner CPI has also announced a candidate, setting up a “friendly contest.”The final agreement was reached after Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi reportedly spoke directly with RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to break the deadlock over the number of seats for the Congress.
While the RJD was firm on offering around 55 seats, citing the Congress’s poor performance in 2020, the grand old party was insistent on a number closer to the 70 seats it contested last time.Elections for the 243-member Bihar Assembly will be held in two phases on November 6 and 11, with the counting of votes scheduled for November 14.
