Patna: Bihar Congress president Rajesh Kumar on Thursday claimed that the party has finalised the seats it will be contesting in the upcoming Assembly polls and claimed that consent has been received from “alliance partners”.
It is likely that the party will contest 58 of the 243 seats in the elections and has already finalised candidates for 25, reported The Indian Express.
The decision was taken during a high-level meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) on Wednesday.
The meeting, held amid ongoing seat-sharing negotiations with Mahagathbandhan allies – primarily the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Left parties – waswas attended by top Congress leaders. Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Rahul Gandhi joined virtually, while K.C. Venugopal, Ajay Maken, and other senior functionaries were present in person. Talking to reporters here upon his return from Delhi, Kumar said the Congress CEC has also approved the list of candidates, and a formal announcement will be made “in a day or two.”
“Decks have been cleared. We had identified the seats after talks with alliance partners. The names of candidates we proposed have been approved by the central election committee”, the BPCC chief said.
He, however, refused to divulge further details, saying “we are to accommodate some new entrants in the INDIA bloc. The process is in the final stages. In a day or two, we will be through and come up with a formal announcement”.
The INDIA bloc in Bihar is helmed by the RJD and includes three Left parties CPI(ML) Liberation, CPI and CPI(M), all of which had contested the last Assembly polls together.
Former state minister Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP), which joined the opposition coalition during last year’s Lok Sabha elections, is also part of the bloc, in addition to the Congress.
The alliance is also expected to bring on board Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s JMM and the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) headed by former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras.
In the 2020 polls, the Congress had contested 70 of the 243 seats in the state assembly, winning 19 of these.