Did the RJD give away too many seats to Congress in Bihar

New Delhi, Nov 10: There was an initial scare for the NDA in the Bihar Assembly elections before the alliance took a lead over the Mahagathbandhan.

Many have questioned whether the RJD got the seat sharing equations wrong. In the 2015 seats the Congress was given seats as opposed to 70 this year. As per the Election Commission of India trends, the Congress is leading only in 21 seats. In the 2015 election the Congress won 27 of the seats.

The performance of the Left parties appeared to be better than the Congress. The CPI (ML), CPM and CPI together had contested 29 seats and were leading on 19 seats.

The Congress had in fact bargained hard to secure 70 constituencies. However the party was unhappy with the choice of seats it was given.

The Bihar Congress in-charge, Shaktisinh Goyal had told The Indian Express that the party had identified 95 seats and asked for 70 of them. Had we got the 70 seats from the 95, our strike would have been better. We had to remain within the alliance and the RJD being the largest party wanted everyone to be flexible, he also said.

Even as the seat sharing talks were taking place, many voices within the RJD had said that the Congress was being given 15 to 18 seats more than what he deserved.