Nomination withdrawal ends today, Oppn deal still elusive

Uncertainty over seat-sharing persists

- Anirban Guha Roy

Uncertainty over seat-sharing within the opposition INDIA bloc persisted on Sunday —a day before the deadline to withdraw nominations for first phase of Bihar assembly elections is set to end — with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and the Left still engaged in high-level talks to resolve the issue of multiple nominations filed in at least 11 contentious seats, people aware of the matter said.

The deadline to withdraw nomination papers for 121 of the 243 seats set to go to polls on November 6 will end at 3pm. As per updated list of nominations, a total of 1375 nominations were accepted till late on Sunday.

Till Sunday night, the Congress had named its candidates ‘on 54 seats across both phases, while the RJD, which had been informally allotting its symbols to hopefuls, is yet to formally release its list but its leaders have filed nominations in at least 60 seats. The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP)'s Mukesh Sahani had recently announced on X that his party would contest 15 seats, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI-ML) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) have each nominated candidates for 20 and nine seats, respectively.

According to people familiar with the matter, one of the key points of contention among the allies remained the multiple nominations filed by leaders of the alliance partners on Lalganj, Vaishali, Rajapakar, Rosera, Biharsharif, Bachhwara, Tarapur, Kahalgaon, Chainpur, Gaura Bauram and Kargahar. Seat-sharing talks for Kutumba are still on among the INDIA bloc allies as both the RJD and the Congress have given symbols to their nominees for the two seats. Of these, only seven are going to polls in the first phase.