Bihar MLC Elections 2026: The Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are set for direct contests on three seats in the upcoming Bihar Legislative Council elections, bringing fresh differences within the Mahagathbandhan to the fore.
The Congress has announced five candidates for the elections, while the RJD had already named candidates for six seats. The latest candidate lists show that the two alliance partners will face each other in the Patna Graduates, Darbhanga Graduates and Kosi Graduates constituencies.
Congress has also nominated candidates for the Darbhanga Teachers and Patna Teachers constituencies, where the RJD has not announced candidates.
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The Congress has renominated former Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president and sitting MLC Dr Madan Mohan Jha from the Darbhanga Teachers constituency.
The party has also fielded Sanjay Yadav from Patna Teachers, Manoj Kumar Jaiswal from Kosi Graduates, Rajnikant Pathak from Darbhanga Graduates and Asadullah Khan from Patna Graduates.
Madan Mohan Jha will face JD(U)’s Ghanshyam Rai and Jan Suraaj Party’s SP Rai in Darbhanga Teachers.
The three Congress candidates in the graduates’ constituencies will face RJD nominees in the upcoming elections.
The direct contests between the two alliance partners are now set for three graduates’ seats. From the RJD, Sanjeev Kumar Singh has been nominated from Patna Teachers, Dilip Kumar from Patna Graduates, Nitesh Kumar from Kosi Graduates and Anil Kumar Jha from Darbhanga Graduates, along with candidates for other constituencies announced earlier by the party.
In Patna Graduates, Congress candidate Asadullah Khan will face RJD’s Dilip Kumar. In Kosi Graduates, Congress has fielded Manoj Kumar Jaiswal against RJD candidate Nitesh Kumar.
The Darbhanga Graduates constituency will see Congress candidate Rajnikant Pathak compete against RJD nominee Anil Kumar Jha.
The two parties are alliance partners at the state level, but their separate candidates in these constituencies mean voters will see them competing directly in the council elections.
Tensions between the Congress and RJD had surfaced last month after the RJD announced candidates for six of the eight MLC seats without a publicly announced seat-sharing agreement with all alliance partners.
Congress leaders had raised concerns about the lack of consultation and said decisions over candidates should have involved the alliance partners. The latest candidate announcements have brought those differences back into focus ahead of the October 23 elections.
A similar situation was seen during the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, when candidates from the opposition alliance contested against one another on 11 seats. None of those seats were won by the RJD or Congress candidates, according to the report.
The contest is not limited to differences within the opposition alliance. Trouble has also emerged inside the ruling JD(U). Mokama MLA Anant Singh has opposed his party’s nominee and sitting MLC Neeraj Kumar in the Patna Graduates constituency. Singh has instead extended his support to Jan Suraaj Party candidate Anuj Singh.
JD(U) Working President Sanjay Jha said the party was aware of the matter. He said the issue was connected to the area of senior JD(U) leader and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, also known as Lalan Singh, and that he had been given responsibility for looking into it.
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