NEW DELHI/PATNA: In a first, Bihar's Tarapur and Khusheswar Sthan, where by-polls are scheduled on October 30, will witness a tough fight for assembly seats between the Congress party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal- both constituencies of Mahagatvandhan (Grand Alliance) in Bihar.
In the midst of a tussle between the Congress party and the RJD over staking a claim on the seats rendered vacant after deaths of the incumbent MLAs during the Covid-19 pandemic, both allies of Mahagatvandhan have announced the names of candidates in these two assembly seats.
Accusing the RJD of not adhering to ethics of coalition, the Congress Party has announced the names of Rajesh Kumar Mishra for Tarapur and Atirek Kumar for the Kusheshwar Sthan seats while the RJD, which leads the Mahagatvandhan, has announced the names of Arun Kumar Sah for Tarapur and Ganesh Bharti for Kusheshwar Sthan seats.
“The decision of both the RJD and the Congress party for fielding their candidates has landed the Mahagatvandhan in a very embarrassing situation. In between their tussle for seats, the NDA candidates may get easy victory”, said a leader of Mahagatvandhan on the condition of anonymity.
According to Congress leaders, the RJD announced the candidates for these seats without proper consultation with the Congress Party. The Congress Party had demanded one seat of Kusheshwarasthan in Darbhanga on which its candidate had contested in the last general assembly election in 2020 but had lost the seats by a small margin.
On the other hand, Tejashwi Yadav told the media that the Congress leader was informed about the decision of RJD to contest these two vacant assembly seats in by-polls.
Meanwhile, NDA ally JD-U has fielded Amar Bhushan Hazari in Kusheshwar Sthan and Rajiv Kumar Singh in the Tarapur seat.
The JD-U had won these two seats in the 2020 assembly elections, so the BJP in NDA supported the claims of JD-U and electioneering for the victory of NDA candidates.