Allies At Odds: Senior RJD Leader Blames Congress For Bihar Poll Loss

Senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Mangani Lal Mandal has publicly laid the blame for the Mahagathbandhan’s crushing defeat in the recent Bihar assembly elections squarely on the Congress party, signalling a major rift within the opposition alliance. Mandal, a senior RJD leader and former minister, made the controversial remarks on Saturday, suggesting his party would welcome it if the Congress chose to quit the alliance and contest future elections separately.

Mandal’s comments came just hours before a scheduled joint meeting of the opposition INDIA bloc allies in the state capital to strategise for the upcoming session of the Bihar legislature, casting a shadow over the alliance’s unity. He asserted that the few seats the Congress managed

to win were solely due to the RJD’s strong support base. To buttress his claim, he highlighted the Congress’s poor performance in both the 2020 and the latest 2025 assembly polls. In the 2025 election, the Congress contested 61 seats but could secure victory in only six, achieving a dismal strike rate. In contrast, the RJD, the principal party of the alliance, contested 143 seats and won 25. He compared this to the 2020 polls, where the Congress had contested 70 seats but only won 19 despite continuous RJD support.

The RJD leader argued that the Congress was benefiting disproportionately from the alliance, relying on his party’s core vote bank without demonstrating adequate strength on the ground. He challenged the Congress to contest the elections alone to truly “know its real strength”. Mandal’s outburst appears to be a direct reaction to a high-level review meeting held by the Congress in New Delhi, where the party reportedly blamed the RJD for its own electoral debacle.

Congress leaders were quick to dismiss the accusation, asking why the RJD chose to align with the “grand old party” if it considered it a spent force in Bihar. A Congress leader suggested that Mandal should raise his concerns with Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the chairperson of the INDIA bloc’s coordination committee for Bihar, rather than airing internal disputes publicly. This escalating blame game reveals deep-seated tensions over seat-sharing and the performance contribution of each partner, threatening the future cohesion of the Mahagathbandhan just weeks after their significant electoral setback.