PATNA, Oct. 19 -- The Opposition bloc's Bihar seat-sharing deadlock deepened on Saturday as the state Congress chief accused Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) Tejashwi Yadav of "sabotaging" the alliance even as other coalition partners announced the number of seats they are "contesting" despite no official consensus. Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Rajesh Ram targeted Yadav for "shifting his stance" in the alliance negotiations. "He entered the AICC meeting with KC Venugopal as a cooperative ally. Now, his actions suggest he is working against the agreement," Ram said. The two-time MLA's remarks come amid growing tensions between the two major INDIA partners, who have failed to reach a consensus on seat sharing even as the deadline for filing nominations for the first phase of polls for 121 seats closed on Friday. In at least nine constituencies, including the SC-reserved Kutumba seat-from which Ram is a sitting MLA contesting-more than one candidate from the bloc might face off if an understanding is not reached. RJD has named Suresh Paswan as its candidate from the seat, which will go to vote in the second phase. Both Ram and Paawan have not filed their nominations, and the RJD has not released an official candidate list. Accusing Yadav of undermining Dalit representation within the coalition, Ram said, "Tejashwi's contempt for Dalit empowerment is laid bare, he's deliberately starving us of our rightful share." This comes against the backdrop of frantic high-level interventions, including Rahul Gandhi's direct call to RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad just days ago, in a desperate bid to avert total collapse - yet the deadlock persists, with Congress's freshly announced list of 49 candidates and offered the party symbols four-five more aspirants, to now clashing head-on with the RJD nominees on key seats. The BPCC charged that RJD's rogue manoeuvres-fielding candidates on at least 10-12 Congress-allocated seats-aren't mere oversights but a calculated assault to demoralise the crusade for justice among Dalits, backward classes (BCs), extremely backward classes (EBCs), the oppressed and minorities, who form the alliance's electoral bedrock. "We've staked our soul on proportional empowerment, mirroring their demographic might, with Rahul Gandhi's visionary blueprint front and centre. But RJD's treachery risks torpedoing it all," Ram fumed, underscoring how the bloc's touted "grand unity" against NDA now teeters on the razor's edge of self-destruction. Ram's fury deepened with suspicions of foul play from shadowy power brokers, pointing to Tejashwi's abrupt about-face post a Delhi court's framing of charges against him, Lalu and the RJD brasses in the land-for-jobs scam. "He strode into that AICC huddle with KC Venugopal like a comrade-in-arms; now, he's morphed into a saboteur under siege. That was not a coincidence," Ram sneered, linking the timing to the RJD's eleventh-hour pivot that has left seat talks in tatters. Defiant amid the wreckage, Ram vowed Congress would "fight tooth and nail" to reclaim the dreams of the downtrodden, underprivileged and women-refusing to cower before this "alliance of convenience turned betrayal." He lambasted Tejashwi, as INDIA bloc steering committee chair, for shirking his duty to forge equitable pacts for the greater war against BJP dominance. "If he can't respect a brother's trust for the big picture, what hope for Bihar's forgotten millions?" The sting hit hardest with RJD's last-gasp ambush: Congress had locked in candidates with meticulous caste calculus to honour the nascent deal, only for RJD to renege, gutting winnable first-phase hopefuls and scrambling defenses....