Before the Bihar assembly elections, the tussle over the seat sharing in the Grand Alliance has intensified. Two important meetings of the Grand Alliance on this subject have been postponing for the last two days. Meanwhile, the Congress party, excited by the success of Rahul Gandhi’s vote rights yatra in Bihar, seems to have a strong conversation with the RJD. He has said that this time too he agrees on the 2020 seat sharing formula, but there should be a balance between good and bad seats. In 2020, the Congress party contested 70 seats in the 243 -member assembly, but was able to win only 19.
Actually, the Congress has considered 27 seats coming to its account as good. She claims that in the current environment she can win these good seats with the cooperation of colleagues. Bihar Congress in -charge Krishna Allavaru says that every state has good and bad seats. There should be a balance in seat sharing, so that one party does not get all good and the other does not get bad seats. According to Allavaru, good seats are those where the party has won or lost by a margin of less than 5,000 votes in the 2020 assembly elections.
According to a report by the Indian Express, a senior Congress leader said – Our claim will be held in 2020 as well as eight seats where the defeat was about 5,000 votes. Rahul Gandhi’s visit has strengthened the India block in Bihar, so we are confident that we will win such seats with allies. The party says that the partition should not be such that it gets only the seats where RJD or other allies have lost before. Also, on the basis of social equations, not all seats in favor of the Grand Alliance should be given to one party.
What is mathematics of good and bad seats?
In the 2015 elections, the Congress contested 41 seats and won 27. But in 2020, RJD gave 32 of these 41 seats to the Congress. Out of this, he won 11 seats. He then won only 8 seats out of the remaining 38 seats. In 2020, the four seats that the Congress won in 2015 gave it to its colleagues – RJD, CPI, CPI (Male) (Male) (Liberation). Congress general secretary in -charge of Bihar Shahnawaz Alam says that our grand alliance is strong, whose final goal is to defeat the NDA. Sometimes compromises have to be made for such goals, it is not a problem.
But a senior RJD leader refused to comment on seat sharing, as the discussion is going on. He said that in 2020, RJD gave his winning 10 seats to allies, out of which CPI (Male) (Liberation) contested 5 and won 3, CPI contested 3 and won 2, while Congress contested 2 and won 1. But this led to the morale of those RJD leaders who wanted to contest those seats. He worked against the coalition candidates.
Eight parties in the grand alliance
The Grand Alliance now consists of eight parties – RJD, Congress, CPI, CPI, CPI (Male) (Liberation), Developing Human Party (VIP), Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and former Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras’s Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP). The seats have become more complicated by coming with JMM and RLOJP. In the first meeting held in Patna in June, the Congress sought 70 seats, while VIP 40. According to RJD’s norms, he has 92 good seats. In 2020, he contested 144 elections, won 75 and lost by less than 17 5,000.
