Bihar Mahagathbandhan Holds First Meeting After Lok Sabha Rout; Manjhi Softens on Tejashwi

Leaders of Bihar’s opposition ‘Mahagathbandhan’, which was almost wiped out in the Lok Sabha election, met in Patna on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to regroup ahead of the assembly election due next year.

Who attended

The grand alliance takes its name from the coalition that won the 2015 assembly election but broke up two years later when Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister and JD(U) national president, went back to the NDA. It now includes the original partners, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, along with the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha.

Rabri Devi, the RJD’s national vice-president and a former chief minister, hosted the meeting at her home. Tejashwi Yadav, state RJD chief Ram Chandra Purve and veteran Jagadanand Singh were present. The Congress sent its national secretary in charge of Bihar, Virendra Rathore, and state president Madan Mohan Jha. Mukesh Sahni, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha, who founded the VIP, HAM and RLSP respectively, also attended.

It was the first time the partners had sat together since the Lok Sabha polls, in which the NDA, led by the BJP and including Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, won 39 of Bihar’s 40 seats.

The alliance’s statement

In a joint statement, the leaders said their coalition was not merely an electoral arrangement but a commitment to the poor, Dalits, backward classes and other deprived groups. They alleged that the economy was in serious trouble, that the RSS and BJP wanted to change the Constitution and end reservations, and that the ruling coalition in Bihar had failed on law and order, education, health and jobs. They resolved to launch public agitations to raise awareness of these issues.

Manjhi changes tack

Manjhi, who had recently voiced unhappiness with the alliance and hinted he might go it alone, had earlier in the day criticised Tejashwi for missing the month-long monsoon session of the assembly. After the meeting, he struck a softer note. “He is back in action,” Manjhi said, adding that Tejashwi was raising the demolition of shops in an anti-encroachment drive.

Tejashwi stayed indoors while others spoke to reporters outside 10, Circular Road. Manjhi avoided questions on whether the alliance had agreed to project him as its chief ministerial face. The RJD named Tejashwi its candidate for the post at a convention in 2017, but partners have not endorsed this. “What is the hurry?” Manjhi asked, saying the alliance would announce its leader later. Rathore also called such questions hypothetical.

Manjhi, who had called the meeting too little, too late before it began, later said the partners would now meet regularly and do better in this year’s bypolls and next year’s assembly election.

What happened next

In the 2020 Bihar assembly election, the Rashtriya Janata Dal won 75 seats, the BJP 74, the JD(U) 43 and the Congress 19. Nitish Kumar remained Chief Minister.

See also: Rashtriya Janata Dal, Indian National Congress.

Originally published on 28 August 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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