By Rahil Nora Chopra
RJD-Congress led Mahagathbandan (grand alliance) in Bihar announced the seat sharing in coalition on March 29. As per the announcement made by senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, RJD will now contest on 26 seats, whereas Congress on nine and the Left parties on remaining five seats. Bihar has a sum total of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies. Among the Left parties, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) to contest on three seats of Bhojpur (Ara), Nalanda and Karakat, while Communist of Party of India (CPI) to contest Begusarai seat, for which it already has announced name of the candidate as Awadhesh Rai and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) would contest the Khagaria seat. The Congress will contest the remaining nine seats of: Kishanganj, Katihar, Samastipur, Patna Sahib, Sasaram, West Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Maharajganj. Meanwhile, heavyweight Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav who wants to contest the Purnia seat at any cost and had recently merged his party Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) into Congress party, appears sulking. Under grand alliance the Congress party has been denied the Purnia seat with RJD already announcing name of Bima Bharti as party candidate from Purnia. However, Pappu Yadav whose wife Ranjit Ranjan is Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh, is likely to be fielded from Supaul seat which she had represented in Lok Sabha once.
