Congress succumbs to RJD in Bihar, will ask for fewer seats in 2025

The Congress party in Bihar is believed to have struck a deal with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) ahead of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, according to which, the grand old party will seek fewer seats in the 2025 Assembly elections in alliance with the RJD as against the numbers it had in the 2020 Assembly elections in the seat-sharing deal.

- BADAR BASHIR

This will amount to meekly accepting junior partner status to the regional party.

In the last Assembly elec tions, out of the 243 Assembly seats in the state, Congress had contested 70. But it won only 19 seats.

The strike rate being poor it led the RJD to accuse the Congress of being the weak link that kept the alliance from forming government in the state. A Congress leader said, “The reason Congress has been accepting the dominance of the RJD is because we don’t want any friction this time. We want to dislodge the current NDA government. Moreover, Lalu Prasad Yadav (RJD chief) has a great influence over the functioning of Congress through the Congress’ state unit president Akhilesh Prasad Singh. But if the Congress gets fewer seats in the Assembly, its organisational base will reduce. Hence, unless the Congress moves away from the alliance, it cannot grow.”