Grand alliance allies RJD and Congress, which are battling internal strife following the tussle over seat sharing in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections and the exit of Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), are trying to make up for the losses after their candidates pitted against each other on several seats in the state. This came to light after the completion of the process of filing nomination papers for the second phase on Monday. After this, a total of 1,314 candidates are left in the fray for 121 seats of the 243-member Bihar Assembly. Voting for these seats will be held on 6 November. The Election Commission withdrew a total of 61 nominations and rejected more than 300 nominations.
RJD fields 143 candidates, avoids clash with Congress
RJD, which leads the opposition alliance and was the single largest party in the last two assembly elections, released the list of 143 candidates after most of the candidates had been allotted election symbols and filed nomination papers.
The party avoided a direct clash with the Congress by not fielding a candidate against Bihar Congress President Rajesh Kumar Ram in the reserved Kutumba assembly constituency. However, RJD candidates will clash with Congress candidates in Lalganj, Vaishali and Kahalgaon.
RJD’s support to VIP candidates
Earlier, in Tarapur, where the NDA has fielded BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary, the RJD was likely to face former minister of state Mukesh Sahni’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), and also in Gaura Boram.
In Tarapur, the VIP announced that it would not support their candidate Sakaldev Bind, in protest against which he withdrew his nomination papers and joined the BJP in the presence of Chaudhary.
In Gaura Boram, RJD president Lalu Prasad sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar stating that his party was supporting Sahni’s younger brother Santosh, and that any candidate contesting under the RJD’s election symbol, Lantern, should not be considered legitimate. However, this letter proved ineffective.
Afzal Ali, who filed nomination on RJD’s election symbol, refused to step down, creating confusion among the party workers in the Darbhanga district assembly seat.
Those seats where there will be a face-to-face contest in the Grand Alliance
There are also fears of infighting within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bachhwara, Rajapakar and Roshada, where both the Congress and the CPI have fielded their candidates. Sitting MLA Pratima Kumari Das will save her seat from Rajapakar, which is currently with Congress.
The Congress is contesting a total of 61 seats, five less than in 2020, when it had won only 19 seats. The poor performance of the party at that time was cited as a major reason for the Grand Alliance’s failure to gain a majority.
The RJD is facing rebellion in Parihar, where party women’s wing chief Ritu Jaiswal has filed her nomination as an independent. He is reportedly angry over the party ticket being given to the daughter-in-law of former state president Ramchandra Purve, whom Jaiswal suspects had a role in his narrow defeat in the last assembly elections.
pappu yadav factor
Another source of tension has been the influence of Pappu Yadav, the independent MP from Purnia and husband of Ranjit Ranjan, the Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh.His loyalists have been given tickets instead of sitting MLAs or deployed in constituencies where the party has little chance of winning.
Number of seats being contested by other parties of the Grand Alliance
The Vikassheel Insaan Party, which has no MLAs in the outgoing assembly but which had earlier demanded 40-50 seats and promised that Mukesh Sahni would become the deputy chief minister if Tejashwi Yadav forms the next government, made a major concession and agreed to contest the elections in 16 constituencies.
CPI(ML) Liberation, which had the highest success rate in the grand alliance in 2020—contesting 19 seats, winning 12 of them—is not being overly ambitious this time and is contesting 20 seats.
The CPI, which has two MLAs, is contesting on nine seats, according to party office secretary Indu Bhushan Verma. CPI(M)’s Bihar state secretariat member Manoj Chandravanshi said his party, which also has two MLAs, will contest on four seats.