The grand alliance or "mahagathbandhan" was announced in Bihar on Friday, March 22, with a seat-sharing formula between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The former JNU student's union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who had earlier said that he will be contesting for the LS elections from Begusarai constituency on a Communist Party of India (CPI) ticket, was missing from the list.
Under the grand alliance among the opposition parties, RJD will contest from 20 LS seats and the Congress party will only be contesting from nine constituencies, disregarding the Communist party in the alliance. Kanhaiya, who had personally met the RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav back in 2016, amid the JNU sedition case was disregarded of a seat.
It seems that RJD leaders are not going to involve the firebrand leader in the coalition talks as the seat is going under RJD. It is also alleged that the current party in charge Tejashwi Yadav and other top leaders of RJD are worried about Kanhaiya's political entry as they fear that he might outshine the RJD leader.
RJD said that Kanhaiya Kumar's name was never part of the discussions. But Manoj Jha, the party spokesperson announced that the alliance in the state would support a CPI (M) candidate and that person would contest from the RJD quota.
The CPI state secretary Satya Narain Singh expressed his anger towards RJD's betrayal of commitment as they had promised an alliance for the upcoming polls. Singh said that alliance or no alliance, CPI will contest from Begusarai and that both Kanhaiya and CPI are ready.
He also said that there are many RJD affiliates in JNU, who does not wish Kanhaiya to contest and win, as they fear that their power in the capital will be reduced.
Another significant reason is that Begusarai - it is called the Leningrad of Bihar as it is the Ground Zero of Left politics in the state - is considered safe for a Muslim candidate. The RJD plans to field Tanvir Hasan, who lost in 2014 by a margin of 60,000 votes. In 2009, Janata Dal-United candidate Monazir Hasan won this seat, reports NDTV.
