RJD unlikely to ally with Cong in upcoming MLC polls in Bihar

Amid the buzz that Congress party may contest the MLC elections in alliance with the RJD, a senior party leader put down all the floating speculations. “RJD has already decided candidates on 4 out of those 7 seats, which Congress party wanted to contest on,” he said.

However, another Congress functionary said, “The official meeting will be held on 15 January where Madhan Mohan Jha will discuss seat sharing of MLCs with the RJD.”

The Congress party wants to contest 6 to 7 seats in the council polls in the state of Bihar. The state party had contested 4 seats last time. Now, the party is expecting at least two to three more seats in the 2022 MLC elections.

Earlier Madan Mohan Jha had had a meeting with Tejasvi Yadav over the seat-sharing on 24 MLC seats. Congress state unit has been hopeful of the alliance but some of the leaders believe that Congress will have to contest it alone.

Meanwhile, the RJD had said that Congress should give the list of candidates. RJD national spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwari had reportedly said that the RJD will evaluate the strength of Congress candidates before offering them seats. “Tickets of MLC election are not prasad of Satyanarayan Bhagwan which could be given to anyone. If any candidate of the Congress has potential, the RJD will consider it,” Tiwari was quoted saying by the Times of India.

Many in the RJD believe that Tejasvi Yadav has realized that Congress has lost its ground viewing the results of recent by-elections. Where candidates of the Congress party couldn’t even save their deposits. The RJD believes that in the coming meeting RJD leadership will again take the tough stance of contesting without Congress as they did in the recent by-elections.

On December 15, the Election Commission cleared the decks after the completion of the panchayat elections. After which Political parties in the state started working on the equations with alliance partners for the 24 seats for MLCs.