Bihar deal done, he says: It's Laloo vs all

tags:India

NEW DELHI: His allies and friends in the UPA may have high hopes, but RJD leader Laloo Prasad Yadav is seeking to seal the sheat-sharing deal for the forthcoming Bihar polls by letting them contest in just 55-60 of the 243 seats for the Assembly.

After Laloo met Congress point man for Bihar, Digvijay Singh, CPI (M) politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, and NCP general secretary, Tariq Anwar, at his residence here this afternoon, the formula that has emerged is: 40 seats for Congress, eight for NCP and eight or nine for CPI (M).

Sources disclosed that the Congress, after handing Laloo a list of 113 seats initially, scaled down its demand to 55 today. The party hopes that Laloo will part with at least 50.

Digvijay's argument: any figure short of this would not be ``respectable'' for a party with a national profile like the Congress.

According to the sources, he virtually pleaded with Laloo for a larger share of seats from the ``negative list'' of 113 constituencies where RJD lost by big margins during the last three elections.

Contesting 84 seats in an alliance with Laloo's RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP in the February polls, the Congress had finished with a tally of 10.

According to the bottom line drawn by the UPA alliance partners assuming that sitting MLAs and last poll's runners-up get tickets the Congress claim rests at 23. And for Laloo, the maximum number for the Congress is 40.

Sharad Pawar's NCP, after dumping Paswan for Laloo, has demanded 15 seats it had secured three last time. According to sources, it may end up with eight seats.

The CPI (M), meanwhile, would not have hoped for more than six seats. But this time, Yechuri has done a major chunk of the groundwork for firming up the alliance under Laloo. And this is likely to translate in to a bonus of two-three more seats.

Although the Congress has given Paswan time till September 23 to join the alliance, the UPA alliance may not wait till then. With the LJP supremo formally announcing his party's tie-up with the CPI front, they may seal their seat agreement on Tuesday.

Interestingly, the sources said that efforts are now on to wean the CPI away from Paswan. Laloo told reporters: ``We held preliminary talks on Monday and by Tuesday we will finalise the seat-sharing adjustment. But if any other party wants to join the secular compartment, we have no objection.''

When asked who the UPA's CM candidate would be, Laloo said: ``Everyone knows, in Bihar, it has always been Laloo versus all.''