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Cong strikes back, seals seat-sharing deal with JMM

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Press Trust of India

Smarting under Bihar snub, the Congress today struck back at RJD by sewing up a seat sharing agreement with JMM in Jharkhand leaving Lalu Prasad just two seats his party had won in the last elections.

A day after Lalu's RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party unilaterally got into a deal in Bihar leaving a paltry three seats for Congress, Congress and JMM today announced a pact under which they would contest seven and five seats respectively. Jharkhand has a total of 14 seats.

"We have finalised the seat sharing agreement. Congress will contest 7 and JMM 5. We have left two seats for RJD," the AICC in-charge for Jharkhand K Keshav Rao told reporters.

 

In the last elections, Congress contested six seats, JMM four and RJD two.

The agreement negates an earlier understanding under which Congress was supposed to contest only six seats while RJD was to contest three seats.

Sources say the bone of contention was the Koderma seat which both Congress and RJD wanted to contest. The seat was won in the last Lok Sabha elections by former BJP leader Babu Lal Marandi, who retained it as an independent in a by-poll later.

Hazaribagh seat was last time won by CPI, which is not the party of UPA alliance this time. Hence, JMM will be contesting this seat. Apart from these two seats, the remaining 12 are sitting seats of three parties.

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First Published: Mar 18 2009 | 5:15 PM IST

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