Rahul Gandhi Steps In To Break Congress-RJD Seat-Sharing Deadlock In Bihar
The RJD, the dominant partner in the alliance, has been pushing hard for a reduced share of seats for Congress.
Published : September 10, 2025 at 5:24 PM IST
New Delhi: The Congress and its ally RJD are locked in a tussle over seat-sharing before the upcoming state election. The friction reached a critical point on Tuesday, prompting intervention from Rahul Gandhi.
The former Congress president urged party leaders in Bihar to strike a fair balance in the seat distribution process for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, amidst ongoing disputes with the RJD.
Rahul Gandhi’s advice came at a crucial moment when the seat-sharing talks seemed to hit a deadlock, and he reviewed the party’s strategy with senior leaders on Tuesday. Congress had been eager to finalise the seat-sharing deal after the successful completion of the INDIA bloc’s recent yatra against Bihar's controversial voter list revision. However, the RJD, the dominant partner in the alliance, has been pushing hard for a reduced share of seats for Congress.
The Congress managers had been trying to conclude the seat-sharing formula as early as possible after the INDIA bloc’s recent yatra against the controversial voter list revision in Bihar concluded, but the RJD, the major player in the alliance, started tough bargaining over the seats demanded by the grand old party.
The Congress had contested 70 of the 243 seats in Bihar in the 2020 assembly elections and could win only 19. Accordingly, the RJD wants to bring down the Congress tally a bit, but the grand old party managers are negotiating hard to get a ‘respectable’ number.
Also, they are adamant about fighting the seats where the Congress is confident of winning this time. Besides a balance in the number of seats that each partner should get and the particular seats they wish to fight, the Congress managers had also been suggesting that the issue of giving up a few seats to accommodate the new members in the alliance should be done on a proportional basis.
This relates to the likely entry of Hemant Soren’s JMM and pashupati paras’s RLJP into the INDIA bloc, which will require the existing partners to give up a few seats each. At present, the bloc includes RJD, Congress, Left parties and VIP.
The JMM, Congress and RJD are part of the ruling alliance in neighbouring Jharkhand. The JMM is keen to contest the bordering seats in Bihar this time. According to Congress insiders, the tussle over seat-sharing was happening as RJD managers were not used to the renewed aggression of the grand old party leaders after Rahul Gandhi’s successful yatra against the Bihar SIR from August 17 to September 1, which brought the alleged vote theft issue to the fore.
“Rahul Gandhi’s yatra against SIR flagged the issue of vote theft in Bihar. The message has now gone down to the voters. This has led to more parties willing to join the INDIA bloc. But space for new members can be created only after the existing parties sacrifice some seats. We want to strike a balance in the seat-sharing, and the number of seats to be dropped by all the partners should be proportional,” AICC in charge, Bihar Krishna Allavaru told ETV Bharat.
According to party insiders, whenever seat-sharing talks are discussed, good seats and bad seats are considered. “The seat-sharing talks in the INDIA bloc are proceeding positively and will be concluded soon. Every party should get a respectable number of seats,” said Allavaru.
According to Congress insiders, Rahul Gandhi also took stock of the positive aspects of the INDIA bloc prospects in Bihar, including joint campaigns and a joint manifesto which will highlight the social welfare agenda, including Rs 2500 allowance for women per month, 200 units of electricity free per month, Rs 25 lakh health care free, among other issues.
“It is going to be the INDIA bloc’s joint manifesto. A draft is being discussed by the alliance partners to firm up the details. Further, a joint door-to-door campaign to explain the various entitlements to the voters will also begin soon by the alliance,” AICC secretary in charge of Bihar Sushil Pasi told ETV Bharat.
On the vote theft issue, which was linked to the controversial Bihar SIR by Rahul Gandhi, the alliance managers are keeping a watch ahead of the final electoral rolls to be published by the Election Commission on September 30.
The bloc members, who had strongly objected to the removal of over 65 lakh names in the SIR, shared their concern over the late inclusion of the Adhaar card as a valid proof for the exercise by the Supreme Court, saying the move may not end up giving much benefit to the voters.
“The SC had to forcefully order the EC to include the Aadhar card as one of the documents for the SIR purpose. But there may not be much benefit as the move got delayed. We had been saying right from the beginning that Adhaar should be included. The delay in the process may affect the inclusion of the voters after SIR,” Congress Legislative party leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan told ETV Bharat.
According to Khan, the Congress will decide its future protests after seeing if the final voter list is clean or not. The bloc had alleged the SIR was conducted just a few months ahead of the assembly elections by the EC, allegedly at the behest of the BJP, but in practice, the entire exercise actually needed a year to be completed smoothly.
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