The Congress and the RJD finally struck the seat-sharing deal on Wednesday setting the stage for a three-way contest for 40 seats in Bihar. The Congress will contest on 12 seats and the RJD on 27. The remaining one seat has gone to UPA partner NCP, which will field Tariq Anwar from Katihar.
“The alliance will now counter the communal forces effectively in the upcoming lS polls,” lalu Prasad said while addressing the media at his wife Rabri Devi’s official residence, 10, Circular Road, Patna.
State Congress president Ashok Chaudhury was also present at the Press meet. lalu said names of the candidates would be announced within two days.
The Congress will contest on the following seats: Samastipur, Sasaram, Kishanganj, Aurangabad, Purnea, Supaul, Patna Sahib, Hajipur, Nalanda, Gopalgunj, Valmikinagar and Muzaffarpur seats.
Senior Congress leader Nikhil Kumar, who resigned from the post of Kerala Governor on Tuesday, will be the party candidate from Aurangabad. In the last lS polls in 2009 when the Congress went alone, it won just two seats of Kishanganj and Sasaram from where party leaders Mohd Asrarul Haque and Meira Kumar had emerged victorious.
The seat-sharing talks between the two parties were deadlocked after lalu declared he would not concede more than 11 seats to the Congress.
The major stumbling block between the two parties was the lok Sabha seats of Madhubani and Motihari from where the Congress party wanted to field its general secretary Shakeel Ahmad and Akhilesh Singh. The RJD was committed to field party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui from Madhubani seat.
Besides, the Congress also wanted Jehanabad, Nawada and Bhagalpur seats for its important state leaders like Sadanand Singh and Ashok Chaudhury. But, the RJD chief was reluctant to spare these seats saying “winnability of the candidate should be the important factor”.
Significantly, a section of the Bihar Congress leaders were not in favour of alliance with the RJD in view of lalu’s recent conviction in a fodder scam case. However, another section of the party pressed for alliance with lalu Prasad arguing that lalu’s vote bank has remained intact despite the conviction.
Reports suggested that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi too was not inclined to strike a seat-sharing deal with lalu Prasad. Rahul was reportedly in favour of going with the JD(U) in Bihar. But after Nitish Kumar snubbed any possibility of alliance talks with the Congress, lalu heaved sigh of relief.