Rift in Bihar Mahagathbandhan over seat sharing

Patna, Mar 28: Trouble brewing between the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar as a major rift has emerged between the Congress and RJD possibly over the seat-sharing formula.

Senior Congress leader Ramdeo Rai has expressed concern with party's leadership over the seat-sharing arrangement which was not in favour of the grand old party and also questioned the Congress' decision to hold discussions on the seats it holds.

According to the reports, The Congress party had staked strong claim on Darbhanga seat for Kirti Jha Azad, who recently had joined the party. The RJD had decided to field senior party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui from Darbhanga. The RJD's move has reportedly annoyed the Congress party workers.

Party chief Rahul Gandhi has called for a meeting of the Bihar Congress unit and other leaders of the grand alliance today.

Elections to all 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar will take place from 11 April onwards in which RJD will contest on 20 seats, Congress on 9, HAM on 3, RLSP on 5, VIP on 3 and CPI on 1 seat.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has already announced its seat-sharing pact -- the BJP and the JD(U) will contest on 17 seats each and six seats were allotted to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had won 22 seats and the LJP was successful in six. Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), which was a part of the NDA in 2014 has now joined the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, won in three Lok Sabha seats. The remaining nine seats were bagged by the RJD (four), JDU (two), Congress (two) and Nationalist Congress Party (one).