By Abhijit Majumder,News18

Copyright news18

In a friendship, friends sometimes end up fighting over the spoils of war after winning. In a political alliance, allies invariably start fighting over the spoils even before the war.
This is why the latest passive aggression between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress is unsurprising. It is the way allies negotiate seat sharing and ensure that they get the best and the maximum.
The Congress has declared its claim on 70 seats in the approaching Bihar assembly elections, just like the 2020 polls in the state. It also wants “good” seats.
There is one minor problem.
In 2020, Congress won just 19 of those 70 seats. In the process, it did not just squander the generosity that RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav extended because of his warm relations with Sonia Gandhi, but became the main reason why the Mahagathbandhan could not form the government in spite of RJD emerging as the single largest party with 75 seats, ahead of the BJP at 74.
The RJD had contested 144 seats, winning more than half of those. Even the far-Left CPI(ML) converted 12 of the 19 seats it was given.
But that has not stopped Congress’s Bihar in-charge Krishna Allavaru to call a press conference at the party headquarters in Delhi and say: “It shouldn’t be that one party gets all the good seats, and another gets bad seats. In seat-sharing, there should be a balance between the good and bad seats.”
For the Congress, “good” seats are where the party either won or lost by a small margin in 2020.
“Our claim will be on all those 19 seats the Congress won in 2020. And on those seats where the party candidates lost by a margin of around 5,000 votes. In the current atmosphere, when Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Adhikar Yatra has energised INDIA bloc workers across Bihar, we are sure that we can win such seats with the support of allies,” a Congress leader told The Indian Express.
RJD scion Tejashwi Yadav responded to the Congress’s lofty demands by coolly stating that voters must cast their mandate in all 243 constituencies in his name. A blunt message to the Congress that it may not be deserving of a single seat.
The Voter Adhikar Yatra has also become a big reason for Tejashwi to want to put the Congress in its place. The Congress, which has just 19 seats and negligible political weight in Bihar, projected Rahul Gandhi as the main star of the ‘Vote Chor Gaddi Chor’ rally in the most cavalier manner. Tejashwi, who wields way more mass appeal in Bihar, was made to look like Rahul’s sidekick. The Yadav leadership finds it incredulous.
As the election nears, the Congress is exhibiting either a lack of maturity or an absence of humility. The BJP, for instance, has announced Nitish Kumar as the NDA’s CM candidate despite JDU having a lot fewer seats than it.
The Congress has not conceded that graciousness to Tejashwi Yadav. Even when asked by the press, Rahul Gandhi dodged, ducked, and tried to divert the topic.
When RJD left 70 seats last time for the Congress to contest, many of its leaders who were preparing to fight from those seats got upset and worked against the alliance candidate, leading to their defeat. It is unlikely that Tejashwi will risk it again.
The Congress could end up with an offer of merely 30 seats on the table this time. Unless the elders Lalu and Sonia step in again and convince Tejashwi to be more magnanimous and Rahul a little pragmatic, the one with genuine power on the ground may prevail to the other’s peril.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.