The constituents of Indie Alliance will remain watching, only the Grand Alliance remains.
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
In Bihar, the effort of opposition unity started against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May-June due to the efforts of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to have collapsed in the state itself. Before preparations for the Lok Sabha elections 2024, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joined the National Democratic Alliance with his party Janata Dal United. Trinamool Congress has given candidates on all the seats of West Bengal and Bihar. Now in Bihar also, most of the parties of opposition unity (Indi alliance) against NDA are not going to get seats in the Lok Sabha elections. All the parties that were or are there under the Grand Alliance are dividing the seats.
The direction of your preparation changed
Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Uddhav Thackeray faction’s Shiv Sena along with Shibu Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) were also hopeful of Lok Sabha seats in Bihar under the Indie Alliance. Last week too, Aam Aadmi Party had talked about preparations on all 40 seats, but now it also seems to be on the back foot. In the AAP workers conference last week in CM Nitish’s home district Nalanda, former state vice president cum zonal in-charge Manoj Kumar presented his views focusing on the assembly elections. He said that voters are enthusiastic about AAP in all the assembly seats of Bihar, but did not mention the Lok Sabha seats. This is the situation even when in June, when the first meeting of opposition unity was held in Patna, a poster was put up considering Kejriwal as the Prime Minister.
Shiv Sena, NCP, JMM also wanted seats
In the first meeting of opposition unity held in Patna, Kejriwal had left midway, but Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Hemant Soren etc., while answering the questions of the media, had said that the party will work hard with full strength in the Lok Sabha elections. But, if we look at the current situation, apart from Bihar’s largest party Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, only Congress is active in Indi Alliance. There is anger within the Congress also over the snatching of a Legislative Council seat. The Left parties hope for fair seat distribution, but they are not putting forward their demands openly. There was expectation of generosity from RJD-Congress in the name of Dipankar Bhattacharya for Rajya Sabha, which went in vain. As far as the 2019 election results are concerned, RJD does not have a single MP. Congress has one. The account of Left parties is also closed. Meaning, only Congress has the right to claim as per 2019. On the other hand, in this situation Aam Aadmi Party had a chance to ask for the seat. NCP has already registered its presence here, hence it could have also staked claim. But, the current situation shows that there will be seat distribution against NDA in the state not within the Indi Alliance but within the Grand Alliance.