PATNA, Oct 18: Even after the first round of nominations is over, the Grand Alliance in Bihar has failed to reach a consensus on seat sharing. As a result, eight candidates from the alliance are now locked in direct contests against each other, exposing deep fissures within the opposition bloc.
The nomination process for the first phase of the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections concluded on Friday, but the Grand Alliance — comprising the RJD, Congress, CPI, CPI-ML, CPIM, and VIP — has yet to formally announce its seat-sharing arrangement.
Despite the nomination deadline passing, there is still no clarity on how many seats each constituent party will contest.
Internal disagreements have marred the alliance’s coordination.So far, the Congress has released a list of 48 candidates, while the CPI(ML) has announced 18 candidates.
However, the lack of coordination has led to a situation where the allies are competing against one another in the very first phase of the election.
In at least eight constituencies, Grand Alliance partners have fielded rival candidates.The RJD has given a ticket to Shivani Shukla, daughter of strongman Munna Shukla, from Lalganj.
Shivani, accompanied by her mother Annu Shukla, filed her nomination soon after receiving the party symbol.
However, the Congress has also fielded Aditya Kumar Raja from the same seat, setting up a direct intra-alliance clash in Lalganj.
Apart from Lalganj, RJD’s Ajay Kushwaha is contesting against Congress’s Sanjeev Kumar in Vaishali.In Tarapur, RJD’s Arun Shah is contesting against VIP’s Sakaldev Bind.In Bachhwara (Begusarai), CPI’s Awadhesh Rai is competing against Congress’s Garib Das.On Gaura Bauram, RJD’s Afzal Ali is contesting against VIP’s Santosh Sahani.
In Rajapakad, CPI’s Mohit Paswan is contesting against Congress’s Pratima Das.
In Rosera, CPI’s Laxman Paswan is contesting against Congress’s B.K. Ravi and one more seat where the Grand Alliance constituent partners are contesting against each other.
Instead of taking on the NDA, the Grand Alliance partners appear to be fighting among themselves, sending a confusing message to their supporters and potentially weakening their electoral prospects.
For the past 10 days, intense discussions have taken place from Patna to Delhi over the seat-sharing formula.
Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge reportedly tried to placate several unhappy leaders, but their efforts failed to yield any concrete outcome.
As the deadline approached, the situation turned chaotic — parties began distributing election symbols without official announcements, and candidates rushed to file nominations at the last minute.
JD(U) FIELDS EX-MP
Former Rajya Sabha MP Sabir Ali, who was expelled from the JD(U) 11 years ago for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was on Saturday named the party’s candidate from Amour assembly seat in Bihar.
The Nitish Kumar-led party made the sudden announcement through a statement, dropping Saba Zafar, the runner-up in the 2020 assembly polls, who was named the candidate for the seat two days ago.
Ali re-joined the party in Purnea district, where Amour is situated, in the presence of the CM’s confidante Leshi Singh, a state minister who seeks to retain the adjoining Dhamdaha for the fourth time in a row.
It was not known why the party dropped Zafar, who had won the seat in 2010 on the symbol of the BJP.
Ali, who started off as a Rajya Sabha MP of late Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, enjoyed his second consecutive term in the Upper House on a JD(U) ticket, but ran afoul of Kumar in 2014 by praising Modi, whose national prominence had driven the Bihar CM to call off the alliance with the BJP.
JMM TO CONTEST 6 SEATS INDEPENDENTLY
Jharkhand’s ruling JMM on Saturday announced that it will contest the Bihar assembly polls independently, and field candidates in six seats.
Elections to 243 seats of the Bihar assembly will be held on November 6 and November 11, and the votes will be counted on November 14.
“The party has decided to contest the Bihar polls on its own. It will contest six assembly seats – Chakai, Dhamdaha, Katoria (ST), Manihari (ST), Jamui and Pirpainti,” JMM general secretary and spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya said.
NDA CANDIDATE’S NOMINATION REJECTED
In an embarrassment to the ruling NDA in poll-bound Bihar, nomination papers of Seema Singh, one of the candidates of Union minister Chirag Paswan’s party, got rejected on Saturday.
Singh, a former Bhojpuri actress, had been named by Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) as its candidate from Marhoura seat in Saran district, where her nomination papers got rejected during scrutiny on “technical grounds”.
When Paswan was asked about the development, he said, “We have submitted a representation before the Election Commission.
The situation has arisen because of a small lapse. Hopefully, it will be resolved.”
Another candidate whose papers got rejected from the seat was Altaf Alam Raju, a former JD(U) leader who had entered the fray as an Independent candidate.
The seat is now likely to witness a direct contest between sitting RJD MLA Jitendra Kumar Rai, who is also a former minister, and Jan Suraaj Party’s Abhay Singh.
CPI(ML) FIELDS CANDIDATES IN 20 SEATS
The CPI(ML) Liberation, a constituent of the INDIA bloc in Bihar, on Saturday released its list of 20 candidates for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections, renominating all its 12 sitting MLAs.The party fielded new faces in seats which it could not win in the 2020 assembly polls.The Left party had, in the last assembly elections, contested 19 seats and won 12 of these.
SHAH WARNS VOTERS
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday expressed hope that the NDA will retain power in Bihar, spurning the RJD-helmed INDIA bloc, which was “jungle raj wearing a new mask”.
The former BJP president, who concluded a three-day tour of the poll-bound state, promised that the NDA will carry forward the march towards progress that Bihar has witnessed “with PM Narendra Modi above and CM Nitish Kumar below”.
“I have been here to seek the blessings of the people of Bihar, which has been like a pothole we filled up in the last 20 years, and we propose to build a grand structure on the firm ground that is now in place. I plead with the people not to trust those who would bring back jungle raj, wearing a new mask,” Shah told ‘Bihar Samagam’, in a conclave.
“I urge the people to give one more chance to the NDA, which is contesting under the credible face of Nitish Kumar. This would help us in continuing the progress that has been made over the years, with Modi above and Nitish below,” he said.
The BJP leader also refused to comment on former political strategist Prashant Kishor’s one-year-old Jan Suraaj Party, which, many believe, could emerge as the proverbial dark horse. (Agencies)
