The Opposition Grand Alliance in Bihar on Saturday finalised its seat-sharing formula for the October-November Assembly elections but a fledgling partner immediately exited the grouping alleging deception.
The Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) of Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni created a ruckus at the meeting where the deal was finalised and staged a walkout in full view of television cameras.
The meeting in Patna began with the leaders observing a minute’s silence in honour of the Hathras gang-rape-and-murder victim, signalling that the crime and the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government’s questionable handling of the situation would be a poll plank in neighbouring Bihar, ruled by a BJP-JDU alliance.
Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the largest party in the Assembly with 80 MLAs, took the lion’s share of the seats. It will contest 144 seats while the Congress will put up candidates in 70 seats. Nineteen seats have been allocated to the CPI-ML, six to the CPI and four to the CPM.
The deal was struck after days of hard bargain at a time the Opposition camp in Bihar has been in disarray because of switchovers and bickering. Leaders of all parties in the alliance were present at the meeting. By announcing the distribution of seats, however, the Grand Alliance is one step ahead of the ruling NDA, which is grappling with differences between chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU, the BJP and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party.
The Congress will also contest the Valmikinagar Lok Sabha bypoll, necessitated by the death of JDU MP Baidyanath Prasad Mahto.
The Bihar Assembly has 243 seats. The elections will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and 7. The results will be declared on November 10. The nomination process for the first phase began on October 1 and will end on October 9.
While announcing the seat-sharing deal in the presence of journalists, RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav said his party would “accommodate VIP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)” from the RJD’s share of 144 seats, adding that “a decision would be taken in two to three days”.
VIP chief Sahni, who launched the party in November 2018, stood up and said: “A son of the extremely backward caste (EBC) has been insulted and stabbed in the back. We had been discussing the seat-sharing deal for days but have been deceived at the last moment. Our party will no longer be part of the alliance.”
