Lok Sabha polls: Oppn seals Bihar deal; RJD to contest 26 seats, Congress 9

Lok Sabha polls: The RJD, which drew a blank in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, will fight on 26 seats in Bihar, while the Congress will contest on 9 seats, including its 2019 win - the Kishanganj constituency

Lok Sabha elections 2024: The Opposition's INDIA or Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance on Friday announced its seat-sharing deal in Bihar for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) contesting more than half of the seats while the Congress settled on nine constituencies.

According to the list, the RJD plans to field its candidates on 26 seats out of the 40 constituencies, including Hajipur, Gaya, Jamui, Siwan among others. Meanwhile, the Congress will contest key seats such as Patna Sahib, and the two seats reserved for the scheduled castes (SC) - Samastipur and Sasaram.

The Left has been given five seats in total, including three constituencies to the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), Begusarai to the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Khagaria to the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

NDA seat-sharing deal in Bihar

The INDIA bloc will put up a collective fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Notably, the NDA alliance also includes Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), which snapped ties with the INDIA bloc in January this year. According to the NDA deal, the BJP will fight the elections on 17 seats while the JD(U) on 16 seats. This is the first time the BJP will be contesting more seats than Kumar's party.

NDA member Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), which is led by Chirag Paswan, will fight on five seats, and Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) and Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) in one each constituency.  

BJP-JD(U) seek a 2019 rewind

Kumar's exit from the Congress-led bloc marked the first major blow to the Opposition as it was in Bihar, where the idea of a collective fight against Narendra Modi was conceived in June last year. The meeting was convened by the Bihar CM. 

Following his exit, Kumar re-formed the government with the BJP, returning to the NDA fold 18 months after exiting the partnership. The BJP-JD(U) had won the 2020 Bihar Assembly polls. However, Kumar switched to the grand alliance in 2022 and then to NDA again in January 2024. This puts the equation back to 2019 when the BJP-JD(U) had fought the Lok Sabha polls in an alliance.

In 2019, the BJP-JD(U)-led NDA had swept the polls, winning 39 of the 40 seats. While the RJD drew a blank, the Congress won the Kishanganj constituency, which it will fight to retain this time.