Lalu says UPA allies to contest in Jharkhand jointly

After entering into a seat sharing arrangement in Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has said the UPA allies will contest on similar lines in Jharkhand as well even as sharp differences among stakeholders - RJD, Congress, JMM and LJP - are yet to be sorted out.

"We will contest jointly even in Jharkhand..." Prasad told reporters here yesterday.

The RJD chief's statement notwithstanding, the allies are still far from reconciling a number of issues.

The JMM's chief whip and party MP Teklal Mahto has claimed that under a "sitting getting" and "no friendly fight" formula seat sharing had been finalised among the UPA allies for the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand under which Congress would get six seats, five would go to JMM and RJD would be left with three with no seats being given to LJP as it had no presence in the state after the 2004 elections.

But, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan has said "We have first zeroed in on six seats in Jharkhand to contest where we have good presence. The party will, however, contest on all 14 seats and will announce its candidates phase wise."

The seat sharing arrangement was also rejected by former Chief Minister Shibu Soren's son Durga Soren who said no UPA alliance is possible in Jharkhand unless his father or another JMM MLA was given chief ministership of the state.

According to the formula spelt out by Mahato, JMM, RJD and Congress had agreed to retain the 12 seats currently held by the respective parties.

The remaining two seats -- Hazaribagh and Koderma held by CPI and an independent -- were to be decided among the three allies -- RJD, Congress and JMM.

The seat sharing issue is understood to have been discussed in the recent meeting between LJP's senior leaders and RJD chief Lalu Prasad during the parleys for Bihar alliance after the LJP had declared candidates on six Jharkhand seats as "it was not consulted by RJD, JMM and Congress" during the earlier seat-sharing agreement for the state.

Meanwhile, Congress is visibly upset with the RJD-LJP agreement in Bihar which left them with only three seats and threatens to go alone in the state complaining of being given a "raw deal".

With AICC General Secretary and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Digvijay Singh announcing yesterday that there was no scope for seat sharing arrangement with the SP anymore, many of the UPA allies seem to be at loggerheads in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand.