Bihar Election 2024: Opposition Grand Alliance Struggles with Seat-Sharing Negotiations as Congress and RJD Seek Compromise

New Delhi:

Election dates for Bihar have been announced but seat sharing negotiations in the Opposition Grand Alliance are currently stalled as the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) work to resolve their differences. The disagreement extends beyond just the number of seats to include claims on strategically important constituencies.

According to sources, following discussions on Monday night, the RJD has offered the Congress approximately 54 seats. However, Congress is requesting 10 additional seats.

Both parties are actively working toward finding a compromise solution and have scheduled another meeting for Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, the CPI-ML has declined the RJD's proposal for 19 seats and is instead demanding around 30 seats. Having demonstrated the strongest performance rate in both recent Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, the party is now advocating for a larger allocation.

Sources indicate that the RJD is prepared to allocate 10 seats to the Left block, which matches their previous offer.

Earlier today, Tejashwi Yadav conducted meetings with Left party representatives at his official residence. A separate meeting was also held with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.

According to sources, the RJD has offered Mukesh Sahni's VIP party 12 seats, but the party is demanding more than 20 seats along with the Deputy Chief Minister position.

Sources further revealed that the JMM, Pashupati Paras's RLJP, and IP Gupta's Inclusive Party will receive allocations from the respective quotas of the RJD and Congress.

It is understood that the RJD aims to contest approximately 140 seats independently. If the party agrees to a modest reduction—even by just 10 seats—the seat-sharing process would proceed more smoothly. Otherwise, friendly contests between alliance partners might occur in some constituencies.

Despite the complexity of the seat-sharing issue, sources maintain that an agreement will eventually be reached.

The potential distribution may look like this: RJD, JMM, RLJP: 135 seats; Congress and IIP: 58 seats; CPI-ML: 25 seats; CPI: 6 seats; CPM: 4 seats; and VIP: 15 seats.

Sources indicate that if everything proceeds as planned, the seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA Alliance—as well as the confirmation of Tejashwi Yadav as the Chief Ministerial candidate—will be finalized within the next two days.