Ties up with JMM to contest seven seats.
Within 24 hours of being sidelined in Bihar, the Congress today gave Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad a dose of his own medicine. The party, along with Shibu Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), signed a bilateral seat-pact bagging 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats, leaving just two seats for the RJD to contest the coming general elections in Jharkhand.
On Tuesday, the RJD and Ramvilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) decided to contest 37 seats in Bihar leaving just three seats for the Congress. Just as the RJD gave only its sitting seats in Bihar to the Congress, Sonia Gandhi’s party too in Jharkhand, gave its trusted ally only those two seats where the RJD currently has its MPs.
Adding insult to injury, Congress general secretary in charge of Jharkhand, Keshava Rao, said: “This will strengthen the UPA in Jharkhand. We have decided this on the basis of the strength of various UPA allies.” (see interview)
Under the arrangement with Soren, the Congress will fight in seven seats, whereas the JMM will contest five.
“The UPA had its MPs in 12 seats. Those seats have gone to respective parties. Two other seats earlier belonged to the CPI and an independent MP. These two seats we have distributed among our party and the JMM,” Rao added.
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The Congress, however, kept the door open for a possible barter between Bihar and Jharkhand seats. “We are ready to negotiate with the RJD,” Rao said after announcing the pact with the JMM.
The deal was finalised yesterday a few hours after Prasad and Paswan held a joint press conference to announce the Bihar deal. The Congress remained absent in the press briefing. Similarly, Congress sources claimed that Prasad was not consulted while finalising the seat pact in Jharkhand.
Apart from their sitting seats, the JMM would contest Hazaribagh and the Congress would field its candidate from Koderma.
The Congress was fuming yesterday after the RJD-LJP seat arrangement in Bihar left just three seats for the party. It has threatened to contest in at least 20 seats in that state if Prasad remains adamant in seat distribution.