Largely cold-shouldered by the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, the Left parties will be contesting eight out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the State. On six of them, they are likely to make the fight a triangular one, while the Left candidates are in a direct fight with BJP nominees in Ara and Begusarai.
Under the seat-sharing pact among Grand Alliance constituents, the three Left parties — CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(ML) could not be accommodated beyond the lone seat of Ara, which the RJD left for CPI(ML) from its own quota of 20 seats. In turn, the CPI (ML) withdrew its candidate from Patliputra seat in favour of RJD candidate Misa Bharti, the elder daughter of party chief Lalu Prasad. The CPI(ML) has a significant electoral presence in this constituency.
“It was more to ensure smooth sailing for Ms. Bharti on Patliputra seat that the RJD left the Ara seat for the CPI(ML),” said political analyst Ajay Kumar. The official explanation of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, however, is that there is little room for manoeuvre. “There are several alliance partners in the Mahagathbandhan and the number of seats remains at 40. We had to accommodate everyone... Somehow the Left parties got left out,” he told The Hindu.
The CPI has fielded candidates in Begusarai (Kanhaiya Kumar), East Champaran (Prabhakar Jaiswal) and Madhubani, for which the candidate has not been named yet. The CPI(M) is contesting one seat, Ujiarpur, where it has fielded Ajay Kumar and the CPI(ML) is contesting four — Ara (Raju Yadav), Siwan (Amarnath Yadav), Karakat (Rajaram Singh) and Jehanabad (Kunti Devi). Contests in Siwan, Jehanabad, East Champaran, Madhubani, Ujiarpur and Karakat have been rendered triangular by the Left candidates’ presence.