Congress And Its Allies Clash Before Bihar Battle Begins

Within weeks of Rahul Gandhi concluding his Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, cracks have begun to appear among the Congress party’s allies over seat-sharing. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly, stirred the waters by declaring that he, meaning the RJD, would contest all 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly. While some dismissed it as a crowd-pleasing remark, others saw it as a subtle warning to Congress to scale down its seat demands.

Public airing of such discord is not new. Seat-sharing talks have rarely ended on a cheerful note, owing to the mismatch between demand and availability. In Bihar’s opposition alliance, the clamour for seats has intensified, with each constituent trying to secure as many as possible. The real complication arises from two new entrants. The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), led by Mukesh Sahani, formerly part of the NDA, has now joined the opposition. So has the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) of former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, after being sidelined by the NDA during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Both parties are demanding their share in the form of seats. VIP’s demand for 40 seats is widely seen as excessive. In the NDA, it had contested 11 seats and won just four, with a modest strike rate of 36.36 per cent. Sahani is now the lone MLA from his party, as the other three legislators defected to the BJP. He failed to keep his flock together and now stands isolated. Paras, who was part of the undivided LJP in 2020, saw his party win just one seat even then. His bargaining power is limited, but he is still pushing for a respectable share.

On the other hand, CPI (ML) (L) has a stronger case for more seats than the 19 it was allotted in the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan in 2020. It won 12 of those with an impressive strike rate of 63.16 per cent. The CPI and CPI (M), however, have little political relevance in Bihar today. The state has few large industries and virtually no trade union base. These parties are more symbolic than strategic, carried by the RJD to showcase ideological inclusivity. Both contested six and four seats, respectively, winning two each. Their presence is more ornamental than impactful, but they remain part of the alliance for legacy reasons.

This means any accommodation for VIP and RLJP will have to come at the expense of either the RJD or the Congress. RJD had a strike rate of 52.08 per cent, winning 75 of the 144 seats it contested. Congress, however, was the weakest link, managing just 19 wins out of 70 seats, with a strike rate of 27.14 per cent. Many blamed Congress for the NDA retaining power, as the Mahagathbandhan fell short of a simple majority by only 12 seats. The Congress party’s poor performance became a talking point, and its inability to convert crowd support into votes was once again exposed.

Despite this, Congress is unwilling to cede ground. Rahul Gandhi, who had a relatively successful tour of Bihar with Tejashwi Yadav by his side, stopped short of endorsing Tejashwi as the opposition’s chief ministerial candidate. The reasons for this are best known to him. Without RJD’s support, Congress risks repeating its Uttar Pradesh debacle of 2022, where it won just two of the 399 seats it contested. The party’s insistence on contesting a large number of seats without a strong organisational base could backfire again.

The Congress leadership would be deluding itself if it drew any conclusion from the crowd turnout at Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra. It is now well established that members of the Gandhi family can draw crowds across the country, but converting those crowds into votes remains elusive. The Congress in Bihar is hollow at its core. It survives in a few pockets, largely due to the personal influence of individual leaders. It made itself a junior partner of the RJD long ago and cannot stand on its own in the state. Even if it contests alone, it risks the same fate as in Uttar Pradesh, and rebuilding would take no less than a decade in a state it once ruled till 1990.

Not that everything is smooth within the NDA either, but its constituents are at least avoiding public spats. The only exception was when Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi criticised LJP (RV) leader Chirag Paswan for threatening to contest over 100 seats if denied at least 40. There are indications that the BJP, which had the best strike rate of 67.27 per cent in 2020, may contest one or two more seats than JD (U), which had a strike rate of 37.39 per cent. Together, these two parties may contest 203 seats, leaving 20 for Chirag Paswan’s LJP (RV) and 10 each for Manjhi’s HAM and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM.

With less than two months to go for the Bihar elections, Congress’s rigidity and RJD’s defiance do not bode well for the opposition’s chances of dislodging the NDA from power. The alliance needs to resolve its internal contradictions quickly, or it risks squandering the momentum built by Rahul Gandhi’s outreach and Tejashwi Yadav’s grassroots connect.

Ajay Jha is a senior journalist, author and political commentator.