The Congress has decided to give up the Purnea Lok Sabha seat. (File)
Patna:
The Mahagathbandhan, the opposition coalition in Bihar, on Friday announced that the RJD, its largest constituent, will contest 26 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress will contest nine seats, followed by CPI(ML) 3 and CPI and CPI(M) one each.
According to the announcement, the Congress has been made to give up the Purnea Lok Sabha seat, which recent entrant Pappu Yadav, husband of Rajya Sabha MP Ranjeet Ranjan, was hoping to contest, claiming that he had been assured of a Congress ticket by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
The seat will be contested by RJD, which recently gave the party ticket to JD(U) defector Bima Bharti but has not formally announced it.
The seat-sharing announcement by the Mahagathbandhan comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls was over.
The RJD has sent its candidates to the polls in all four seats in the first phase, which is being termed as a “unilateral move” by its allies.
The Mahagathbandhan press conference here was to be addressed by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, but was conspicuous by his absence.
RJD national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, who spoke at the press conference, said names of candidates would be announced soon in seats where the same has not been done yet.
Notably, CPI and CPI(M) have already announced their candidates for Begusarai and Khagaria respectively.
Mr Jha, who spoke in the presence of state Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh and other allies, asserted, “We have reached a unanimous decision and we will win”.
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