Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav will be the Chief Ministerial candidate of the opposition alliance in Bihar Assembly Election 2020, the Congress has announced in a joint press conference on Saturday, after days of deliberations over the crucial issue of seat sharing.
Avinash Pandey, a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) said, “All components of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) have decided to come together as coalition for the Bihar Assembly elections. Congress, RJD, CPI, CPM and Vikassheel Insaan party will be part of this alliance under leadership of RJD. We want Bihar to prosper under Tejashwi Yadav.”
According to the seat sharing agreement for the Bihar Assembly elections, the RJD would contest in 144 seats, while the Congress will contest from 70 seats. The Left parties will be contesting in 29 seats.
The seat sharing announcement comes after days of deliberations marked by initial disagreement among the allies. The exercise gained pace after RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners, reports said. Lalu Prasad was not in favour of offering more than 60 seats to the Congress, it was claimed.
Sources in the Indian National Congress (INC) said they are not happy with the seat-sharing pact and no senior leader of the party will be there at Saturday’s press meet. Congress general secretary and Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil has returned to Delhi on Friday night. To douse speculations, Gohil on the 3rd of October, tweeted, “All is well”.
The Bihar Elections are scheduled to be held in three phases starting from 28th of October till the 7th of October.
Stay tuned for further updates.
