Bihar Election 2020: Tejaswi Yadav was on Saturday declared Chief Minsiterial Face of Grand Alliance.
One of the smaller parties in the opposition coalition in Bihar could not hide its resentment as the seat sharing arrangement for the upcoming assembly polls was announced on Saturday, walking out in the middle of the news conference and alleging they had been "cheated".
The Vikassheel Insaan Party or VIP led by Mukesh Mallah said they had been promised 25 seats and the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
"We have been cheated," Mr Mallah said, dramatically walking out of the press conference that had coalition's Chief Ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav the of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), leaders of the Congress and the Left.
Later, he tweeted in Hindi: "Today the RJD has stabbed the EBC (Extremely Backward Classes) community in the back. Despite being from the EBC community, the RJD has betrayed the entire group and the VIP party condemns this. People will teach the RJD a lesson in these elections."
RJD leaders, however, said no such promise had been made to the party and added such "theatrics"
will ultimately end the career of smaller outfits.
Launched in 2018, the VIP has not won a single election so far. Mr Mallah sided with the BJP in 2015 when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU), the RJD and the Congress won the state election.
Later, after Mr Kumar parted ways with the Grand Alliance, Mr Mallah sided with the opposition bloc but couldn't win a single of the three seats he contested in the 2019 elections.
The opposition coalition on Saturday announced its seat sharing pact, naming Tejashwi Yadav as the Chief Ministerial candidate and allotting his party 144 seats out of 243. The Congress will contest in 70 and Left parties 29 while the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha will get seats from the RJD quota.
Bihar will vote on October 28, November 3 and 7 for a new government and the results will be announced on November 10. The country's biggest election in the coronavirus crisis will be held with many changes, including an extra voting hour and no physical contact during the campaign.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the ruling coalition in the state with the BJP, hopes to win a fourth term with the opposition RJD of jailed former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress - his partners in the last election - challenging him.