Patna: The five-party Grand Alliance (GA) appears to be in disarray ahead of elections to eight teacher and graduate constituencies of the Bihar legislative council with the Election Commission expected to announce the schedule soon.GA partners have been working independently and announcing candidates without prior talks or consultations, raising the possibility of friendly contests like those witnessed on 11 seats in the 2025 assembly elections.The terms of the eight sitting MLCs will expire on Nov 16. The seats comprise teacher constituencies of Patna, Darbhanga, Saran and Tirhut, and graduate constituencies of Patna, Darbhanga, Kosi and Tirhut.The sitting teacher MLCs are Nawal Kishore Yadav of BJP (Patna), Madan Mohan Jha of Congress (Darbhanga), Independent Afaque Ahmad, supported by Jan Suraj (Saran), and Sanjay Kumar Singh of CPI (Tirhut). The graduate MLCs are JD(U)’s Neeraj Kumar (Patna), BJP-supported Independent Sarvesh Kumar (Darbhanga), BJP’s N K Yadav (Kosi) and Independent Banshidhar Brajvasi (Tirhut).The RJD on Friday announced candidates for six seats. Its teacher candidates are former Parbatta MLA Sanjeev Kumar Singh (Patna) and Jairam Yadav (Saran). Its graduate candidates are Dilip Kumar (Patna), Nitesh Kumar (Kosi), Anil Kumar Jha (Darbhanga) and Rashmi Vinayak Gautam (Tirhut).The RJD has left Darbhanga teacher constituency for sitting Congress MLC Madan Mohan Jha and Tirhut teacher constituency for sitting CPI MLC Sanjay Kumar Singh.“Our party has selected only those candidates who have already prepared and enlisted their voters with a view to defeating the NDA candidates. Other parties in the GA, too, should work and think to defeat the NDA,” RJD state spokesman Chitranjan Gagan said.The CPI had announced Vidyasagar Vidyarthi for Saran and Sanjay Kumar Singh for Tirhut in June, while the CPI-M is willing to fight on one seat.The developments have also exposed differences among alliance partners with seat-sharing talks yet to produce a common strategy ahead.The Congress, meanwhile, has zeroed in on four seats. “We are in no mood to compromise on the Darbhanga teacher constituency seat. Soon, we will announce the complete list of our candidates,” Congress state chief Rajesh Ram told reporters on Sunday.
