After drubbing at the hustings, Congress-RJD ties under strain in Bihar

After the drubbing in the just concluded Bihar Assembly elections, the ties between the RJD and the Congress appears to have strained.

“There are a large number of party leaders who are in favour of snapping the ties with the RJD. The final decision has to be taken by the central leadership,” said Shakeel Ahmad Khan, a Congress leader.

He was talking about a two-day meeting held in Delhi to review the humiliating defeat of the Congress in the Assembly poll. The Congress managed to win just six of the 61 seats it contested. Even its state president Rajesh Ram was defeated.

A former union minister, Shakeel Ahmad said the Congress never benefited from its alliance with the RJD. “There are certain sections of society which do not vote for us because we are with the RJD,” he said.

The RJD is livid over the Congress putting the blame of the defeat on the party. “In the 2020 Assembly poll, the Congress contested 72 Assembly seats under the alliance. It won only 19 and we lost the chance of forming the government by 12 seats. The Congress lost so badly in some seats that our party workers were against any alliance. Tejashwi Yadav overruled the workers because we wanted to put up a united front against the NDA. We asked the Congress to scale down its demand for seats. However, it insisted on fielding 61 candidates. It won just six seats — all these with our votes,” said state RJD president Mangani Lal Mandal.

Mandal said the Congress was one of the reasons why the Mahagathbandhan fared so poorly in the Assembly poll.

“Now, if they want to quit the alliance, they are welcome to do so,” he said.

The Congress dominated the Bihar politics till 1990. It had the support of Muslims, upper castes and Dalits. In 1990, after the infamous Bhagalpur riots, the decline of the party began. In the 1990 Assembly poll, it won 71 seats of the 324 seats in joint Bihar, but still had 24.78 per cent of the votes.

In the 1995 poll, the decline of the Congress continued while the BJP managed to win 41 seats with just 13 per cent of the votes. The Congress managed to win just 29 seats, but still had 16.3 per cent of the votes.

In the 2000 Assembly poll, the Congress vote share and seats dipped further. The party got 11.06 per cent votes and won 23 seats.

It was during this period that the Congress-RJD alliance took shape as the then Vajpayee government imposed President’s rule and had to withdraw it after the Congress opposed it in Parliament. Foes became friends and all 23 MLAs of the Congress became ministers in the Rabri government.

In the 2005 Assembly poll, the Congress contested 51 seats in alliance with the RJD and won nine. In 2010, the relationship with the RJD soured and the Congress contested all 243 seats but won only four with 8.3 per cent votes. Its fortunes improved in 2015 when it was an ally of the RJD and the JD(U) and won 29 of the 41 seats in contested.

The decline of the Congress, however, is clear — from 39.5 per cent votes and 190-odd seats in 1985 to just 8.3 per cent votes and six seats in 2025.