Laloo gives 14 seats to Cong
Tribune News Service

PATNA, Aug 21 (UNI) — Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Laloo Prasad Yadav today announced formal electoral alliance with the Congress and other Left parties in Bihar for the Lok Sabha elections.

The state's ruling party would contest 34 seats of the total 54. In the electoral understanding reached at the national level, the Congress got 14 seats in Bihar.

The three Left parties — the CPI, the CPM and the Marxist Coordination Committee — received three, two and one seat, respectively, in the electoral alliance, which was formally announced during the day after several days of hectic discussions.

The RJD President told newspersons here that he had increased the quota for the Congress to 14 from 13 seats following a personal request from AICC President Sonia Gandhi.

He said the electoral alliance was complete and hoped that there would be no friendly contest between the alliance partners. To a query on the reported resentment among Congressmen on the number of seats given to the party, he said: "I had a talk with senior Congress leaders and only after that I had announced the numbers".

The RJD chief termed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) a "vagabond of ramlila mandali". The BJP and its team would be "wiped out of power" which they had "misused for their personal benefits", he said.

To avoid division of secular votes in the state, he said, the ruling party had to sacrifice some of its popular seats to alliance partners and was hopeful that the present alliance would continue for the coming Assembly poll expected around March next.

Earlier, a report had indicated that the RJD would give 13 seats to the Congress, four to the CPI and one each to the CPM and the MCC. But the Congress and the CPM managed to get one more seat each while the CPI had to be satisfied with three.

While no Congress and CPI leaders were present at the press conference, two senior CPM leaders were there.

The Congress was demanding no less than 20 seats while the CPI was pressing for eight seats from the state.

NEW DELHI (TNS): Notwithstanding the brave posture that the talks were still on, the Congress has accepted offer of the Rashtriya Janata Dal to contest on 14 seats.

Party sources said the Congress had little choice but to go with the decision of RJD Chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav since it hoped to enlarge its share in the Assembly elections due next year.

The RJD has given 14 seats to the Congress, three to CPI (M), two seats to Communist Party (Marxist) and one to the Marxist Coordination Committee.

For record AICC Spokesman, Mr Kapil Sibal, said that talks were still on and the Congress would hope to convince Mr Yadav (on conceding more seats).

However, party sources said that the share of seats was acceptable.

The Congress which went alone in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, with tacit understanding with Mr Yadav’s party won five seats.

This time around, the Congress has to select a new candidate for Kathiar Lok Sabha constituency since Mr Tariq Anwar now has joined the Nationalist Congress Party.

Meanwhile, the AICC today released another list of candidates — 38 from West Bengal.

The prominent among them are the WBPCC Chief Mr A B A Ghani Khan Choudhary, working Chief, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, former State Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Mr Pradip Bhattacharya.