Patna: The seat-sharing for "Mahagathbandhan" has been finalised ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, said sources on Friday.
The RJD will give 70 seats to Congress but will not let them have a seat of their choice. Left parties are expected to contest in around 30 seats, according to sources.
Senior NDA leaders also held a meeting in Patna on Thursday regarding the finalisation of seats for the Assembly polls and are likely to announce the seat-sharing formula before October 4 in Delhi.
Bihar Congress in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil said in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat that his priority is to defeat the fascist BJP. He said that the seat-sharing talks are in the final stages and the outcome will be made public very soon.
On Friday, several senior Congress leaders, including Shaktisinh Gohil, held a closed-door meeting in the party's Sadakat Ashram office in Patna and discussed seat-sharing arrangement. Madan Mohan Jha, Akhilesh Singh, Sadanand Singh and Kokab Qadri were also present in this meeting.
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If sources are to be believed, the seat-sharing in the Grand Alliance has been finalized. Congress will contest 63 seats while Mukesh Sahni's party will contest 5 to 7 seats. The Left (CPIML, CPI and CPM) can be given 25 seats. JMM will get 2 seats, while RJD itself will contest from 145 to 148 seats. However, a formal announcement about this is yet to be made.
In the meeting held under the chairmanship of Shaktisinh Gohil, it was decided that the Congress will contest all the seats it had won in 2015.
The filing of nomination papers for the first phase for assembly elections 2020 has started. For the first phase, the Congress announced the names of candidates on the seats which it had won in 2015. The candidates have also been given election symbol on all those seats. Both the parties are not in a position to talk on this.
According to Congress sources, RJD has already been informed about that the Congress will put up candidates on all the seats it had won in 2015. The party has already announced the names of its candidates and started preparations for the campaign.
The first phase of the nomination has already begun in Bihar for 71 seats and the Election Commission of India is busy in the preparation of state election monitoring all poll-related matters with officials. There are a total of 243 Assembly seats in Bihar.
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With ANI inputs
