After prolonged negotiations, the Mahagatbandhan managed to settle the seat division between the allies by late Thursday (October 16, 2025), hours before the final deadline for filing nominations for the first phase of the Bihar Assembly election. A formal announcement is awaited.
Thursday (October 16, 2025) saw hectic parleys between the allies, with Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) nearly jumping the ship.
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Many expected that Mr. Sahani, who had walked out of the grand alliance at the last minute in the run-up to the 2020 Assembly election in Bihar, would repeat his move when he announced a press conference on Thursday (October 16, 2025) noon. The press conference was then postponed twice before being cancelled.
The negotiations between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and other allies have now been finalised. The parleys between the RJD, the Congress and the CPI(ML) are said to have stretched through Thursday (October 16, 2025). The Congress brought in former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Bagel for the final round of talks.
Also read: Congress releases first list of 48 candidates for Bihar Assembly polls
Three seats — Kahalgaon, Vaishali and Jale — were the bone of contention between the Congress and the RJD. The Congress released a list of candidates for 48 seats on Thursday night. Bihar Congress State President Rajesh Ram and Congress Legislature Party leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan retained their candidature for Kutumba and Kadwa Assembly constituencies respectively. The list has five women candidates. Out of 48, 24 names were for the first phase of polling and 24 for the second phase. The list features four Muslim candidates, nine Scheduled Caste candidates and one Scheduled Tribe candidate.
The Congress has fielded Shashant Shekhar from Patna Sahib and Kaushlendra Kumar from Nalanda. The party has fielded Bijendra Chaudhary from Muzaffarpur, Om Prakash Garg from Gopalganj, Amita Bhushan from Begusarai, Chandan Yadav from Khagaria, Sanjay Kumar Tiwari alias Munna Tiwari from Buxar, Anand Shankar Singh from Aurangabad and Arun Kumar Bind from Harnaut.
The Congress has retained its 11 sitting MLAs, which includes those from Bhagalpur, Kadwa, Manihari, Muzaffarpur, Rajapakar, Buxar, Rajpur, Kutumba, Kargahar, Hisua, and Aurangabad.
The CPI(ML) has been insisting on an increased seat share, based on its 2020 electoral performance when it had won 12 of the 19 seats it contested. According to sources, the party is likely to get a minor increment, in the form of an additional seat.
When Mr. Sahani called for the press conference at noon, the grand alliance partners got together. It is learnt from sources that the RJD was of the view to not pander to Mr. Sahani’s demands, citing his 2020 walkout. However, CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, playing the peacemaker, insisted that it was crucial to keep the grand alliance intact, even if it meant that the CPI(ML) or other allies have to sacrifice one or two seats. The Congress also backed the view.
Sahani writes to Rahul
By afternoon, with the RJD remaining intractable, Mr. Sahani wrote a letter to the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, pleading for his case. Mr. Sahani said that he was initially promised 35 seats, which had been reduced to 25 and then further down to 18. The issue, he said, was not the number of seats but about ideology. He also reaffirmed his commitment to the grand alliance, claiming that he is aligned against “communal and divisionary forces”.
Mr. Gandhi, it is learnt, intervened on Mr. Sahani’s behalf. Congress sources told The Hindu that the RJD has agreed to give 15 seats to the VIP.
Amidst these parleys, Mr. Sahani’s press conference was deferred till 4 p.m., then later again to 6 p.m., and finally called off. All through the day, the VIP leaders gave sound-bites to the media, underlining the electoral importance of their party, to build the pressure for more seats. VIP spokesperson Sunil Nishad said, “If we do not get the desired seats they [Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi] will have to pay a price.” He argued that the Nishad caste group, which the party claims to represent, makes about 10% of the total voting population in the state.
BJP takes a swipe
The confusion in the grand alliance has come as a shot in the arm for the ruling National Democratic Alliance, which had been battling dissensions, which are far from settled. Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal, taking a swipe at the grand alliance, said, “It seems Mr. Sahani has been “thrown out of the Mahagatabandhan like a speck in the milk.” He also praised Mr. Sahani, saying that he is well accepted among the Nishads.
Mr. Sahani, who calls himself “son of mallah”, comes from the mallah (boatmen / fishermen) community, which is a sub-caste of the Nishad caste that comes under the larger umbrella of the Extremely Backward Class. The caste group is predominantly based in Mithilanchal and Seemanchal areas of north and northeastern Bihar.
The VIP leader, after a stint in the Hindi film industry as a set designer, started “Nishad Vikas Sangh” a caste federation in 2015, that campaigned for the BJP in the Assembly election that year. He parted ways with the BJP, protesting the exclusion of the Nishad community from Schedule Caste category. In 2018, he launched the VIP. His party VIP unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election as part of the Mahagatbandhan. Mr. Sahani himself lost from Khagaria Lok Sabha constituency.
In the 2020 Bihar election, after switching to the NDA at the last minute, he lost from the Simri-Bakhtiyarpur Assembly segment, though his party won four seats. Despite the loss, Mr. Sahani was accommodated in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet, where he served as Minister for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries in Bihar from November 2020 to March 2022.
Three of the four VIP MLAs switched to the BJP midway through the Assembly tenure. Lamenting the betrayal, Mr. Sahani returned to the grand alliance in April 2024.
Published – October 16, 2025 10:29 pm IST