The RJD and Congress are poised to contest the upcoming Legislative Council election against each other. Are the two parties, allies since 2000, going their own way?
Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the Bihar opposition and de facto head of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, said that his party’s alliance with the Congress exists only at the national level. It was a body blow to the grand old party in Bihar, having been an RJD ally since 1995.
In what appeared to be a conciliatory remark later, Bihar party president Jagdanand Singh said that while the RJD respects its alliance partners, it was but natural to let the party lead the alliance in Patna and the Congress at the national level.
However, while the state RJD president’s tone may have sounded accommodative, his party’s actions have been anything but. The RJD has declared candidates for 21 of the 24 Legislative Council seats, which will be filled from the local bodies’ constituencies that fell vacant last year. There is every chance that the Congress too may contest all the seats on its own. The election is likely to be held in March.
Incidentally, this is the second time in four months that the RJD and Congress will be fighting against each other in Bihar. In October 2021, the Congress decided to go solo after the RJD refused to concede either Kusheshwar Asthan or Tarapur in the bypolls held for these seats. The Janata Dal (United) had won both the seats then while the RJD finished second.
Political observers believe Tejashwi’s patience with the Congress is wearing thin in Bihar. “This is not without reason,” says a senior RJD leader in Patna. “If the RJD-led five-party Grand Alliance won 110 seats in the 2020 assembly poll, falling short of the simple majority by 12 seats, it was largely attributed to the Congress, which took 70 seats to contest but won only 19. If this was not all, they snapped ties with the RJD and contested the two bypolls in October, only to forfeit their deposits.”
