Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 | Ahead of Sonia Gandhi visit to Patna, RJD and Congress 'bury hatchet'

Mahagatbandhan allies scale down demand on seats, may seal the deal soon

Patna: Sonia Gandhi may not be the Congress president but such is the respect for her within the party and even outside that even the I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners pay heed to whatever she suggests overtly or covertly. As former Congress chief and member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Sonia will be in Patna where she will attend the marathon CWC meet at the party headquarters – Sadaquat Ashram - on Wednesday and, along with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, give final shape to the party candidates who will throw their hat in the Assembly poll ring.

This comes close on the heels of ‘bitterness’ between the RJD and the Congress where the former was a bit miffed over the latter’s refusal to public endorse Tejashwi Yadav’s name as the Chief Ministerial candidate, even though the RJD had put its mite behind Rahul Gandhi’s Voters’ Adhikaar Yatra to make it successful. The bitterness led to Tejashwi embarking alone on his yatra last week and even hinting he was ready to contest on all the 243 seats.

However, the ‘bitterness’ seems to be short-lived as backroom channels from the Congress as well as the RJD worked overtime to assuage the ruffled feathers of the RJD leadership. It was during this ‘placating’ exercise that the Congress and the RJD decided to scale down on the number of seats each would contest.

Numbers' Game

While the Congress was earlier adamant on contesting at least 70 seats (the same number it contested in 2020), the RJD too was rigid on contesting the 144 seats and leaving the remaining 99 seats for its allies. The Left and the Mukesh Sahni-led Vikas-sheel Insaan Party too were flexing their muscles for a larger pie.

But this is a thing of the past.

The RJD leadership, including Lalu Prasad, who has stood by Sonia Gandhi through her difficult times, was reportedly of the view that seat sharing between the Congress and the RJD should not become a bone of contention and give the NDA an ammunition to beat the I.N.D.I.A. bloc with.

“Though the seat-sharing deal will be announced formally in the next few days, it has been largely decided that Congress will scale down its demand from 70 to 58, while the RJD from 144 to 130,” said a senior leader of the Mahagatbandhan, who is aware of the backroom manoeuvring, but prefers anonymity.

“The Congress has suggested that it be given seats of its choice and not those which are not winnable. The RJD too has shown its large-heartedness and scaled down its number of seats while increasing those of the CPI-ML from 19 to 27 in view of its better strike rate last time,” said the source. “During the 2020 polls, the CPI-ML had contested 19 seats and won 12, while the Congress contested 70 and won 19. The RJD had contested 144 and became the single largest party by winning 75 seats, although it missed the CM chair due to Congress’ poor performance,” the senior leader added.

The unimpeachable source said with the new entrants like Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the LJP led by former Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras (brother of Ram Vilas Paswan), Tejashwi may allot two seats each to the new players in Mahagatbandhan, besides six seats to CPI, four to CPM and 14 to the VIP.