Opposition parties finalize seat sharing in Bihar: RJD 26, Congress 9, Left 5

The Congress has been forced to give up the Purnea Lok Sabha seat. (document)

Patna:

Bihar’s opposition alliance Mahagathbandhan on Friday announced that the RJD, its largest constituency, will contest 26 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. Congress will contest on 9 seats, followed by CPI(ML) on 3 seats, CPI and CPI(M) on 1 seat each.

As per the announcement, the Congress has decided to give up the Purnea Lok Sabha seat and Pappu Yadav, the husband of recent Rajya Sabha member Ranjeet Ranjan, wants to contest from the seat, claiming that he Already got assurance of Congress ticket from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

The seat will be contested by the RJD, which recently gave its party ticket to JD(U) turncoat Bima Bharti, but no formal announcement has been made.

The Mahagathbandhan seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers concluded in the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

The RJD fielded its candidates for polling in all four seats in the first phase, a move frowned upon by allies as a “unilateral move”.

The Mahagathbandhan press conference was scheduled to be addressed by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, but his absence remained conspicuous.

Addressing a press conference, RJD national spokesperson and Lok Sabha member Manoj Jha said the list of candidates for the yet-to-be-announced seats will be announced soon.

Notably, the CPI and CPI(M) have announced their candidates for Begusarai and Khagaria respectively.

Mr Jha, speaking in the presence of state Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh and other allies, insisted, “We have reached a unanimous decision and we will win”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)