We construct a mod $\ell $ congruence between a Klingen Eisenstein series (associated with a classical newform $\phi $ of weight k) and a Siegel cusp form f with irreducible Galois representation. We use this congruence to show non-vanishing of the Bloch–Kato Selmer group $H^1_f(\mathbf {Q}, \operatorname {\mathrm {ad}}^0\rho _{\phi }(2-k)\otimes \mathbf {Q}_{\ell }/\mathbf {Z}_{\ell })$ under certain assumptions and provide an example. We then prove an $R=dvr$ theorem for the Fontaine–Laffaille universal deformation ring of ${\overline {\rho }}_f$ under some assumptions, in particular, that the residual Selmer group $H^1_f(\mathbf {Q}, \operatorname {\mathrm {ad}}^0{\overline {\rho }}_{\phi }(k-2))$ is cyclic. For this, we prove a result about extensions of Fontaine–Laffaille modules. We end by formulating conditions for when $H^1_f(\mathbf {Q}, \operatorname {\mathrm {ad}}^0{\overline {\rho }}_{\phi }(k-2))$ is non-cyclic and the Eisenstein ideal is non-principal.

For certain algebraic Hecke characters χ of an imaginary quadratic field F we define an Eisenstein ideal in a p-adic Hecke algebra acting on cuspidal automorphic forms of GL2/F. By finding congruences between Eisenstein cohomology classes (in the sense of G. Harder) and cuspidal classes we prove a lower bound for the index of the Eisenstein ideal in the Hecke algebra in terms of the special L-value L(0,χ). We further prove that its index is bounded from above by the p-valuation of the order of the Selmer group of the p-adic Galois character associated to χ−1. This uses the work of R. Taylor et al. on attaching Galois representations to cuspforms of GL2/F. Together these results imply a lower bound for the size of the Selmer group in terms of L(0,χ), coinciding with the value given by the Bloch–Kato conjecture.