Will contest as many LS seats as we did in 2019: Bihar Congress chief

Patna: Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh on Friday said his party will contest a number of seats in next year’s Lok Sabha polls.

Addressing a press conference at the historic Sadaqat Ashram, which serves as the BPCC headquarters, Singh did not specify the number of seats the party would contest but hinted that it would be "as many as in the last general elections".

He also claimed the Congress, which had contested more than 400 seats in 2019 but won only 52, has "grown much stronger in the last one year" for which he gave full credit to "Bharat Jodo Yatra of our supreme leader Rahul Gandhi".

Asked whether the Congress could face difficulty in getting its due share from allies in INDIA, he said, "our standing (haisiyat) may be gauged from the fact that our Lok Sabha tally was highest for any opposition party".

"Even in Bihar, we were the only party which could win a seat," said the Rajya Sabha member referring to Lok Sabha polls of 2019 when the NDA, which then also included Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), won all but one of the 40 seats in the state.

The Congress candidate from Kishanganj had managed to wrest the seat.

Singh, who was formerly with Lalu Prasad’s RJD, said, "Under my stewardship, the Congress may rest assured of respectable seat sharing deal".

He also expressed confidence that the chief minister will agree to the Congress' demand for two more berths in the Bihar cabinet whenever he chooses to expand it.

On the India versus Bharat controversy, the Congress leader said, "It stems from insecurity about growing popularity of the opposition coalition. It is also a trick to divert public attention from price rise and crony capitalism".

The former Union minister also expressed dismay over the government not disclosing the agenda for the upcoming session of Parliament.