In Bihar, RJD urges Congress to scale down to 8 seats from 11 or contest Lok Sabha election alone 

Lalu Prasad.

New Delhi: Intensive negotiations between the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress are on the cards on Bihar seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha election. The start of the seat-sharing negotiations among the allies didn’t began well as it snowballed into a war of words between the two parties. RJD chief Lalu Prasad, on Monday, asked the Congress to either scale down its demand of 11 seats to 8, or contest on all 40 seats alone. Prasad has asked the party to take decision by 2pm on Tuesday.

According to local media reports, the two major allies of the state opposition’s mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) are going through a rough patch after Lalu’s heir Tejashwi Prasad Yadav took a tough posture and asked the Congress leaders in Delhi to scale down their demand. He said failing to do so would make him hold a joint news conference with other allies after 2 pm, on Tuesday, and announce the seat-sharing agreement for mahagathbandhan without the Congress.

Earlier the RJD chief Lalu Prasad promised to give 7 seats to Congress, but since the party asked for 15 seats Prasad raised to 8. Trouble between the two parties started brewing after the chairman of the Bihar Congress campaign committee and Rajya Sabha member, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, stated few days ago that the Congress would contest from 11 seats in the state. He said this while the negotiation between the RJD and the Congress was still on.

Over this, Tejashwi said they would hold fresh talks with the party in New Delhi, on Monday, to resolve the dispute over three seats.

Meanwhile, the NDA parties in Bihar – Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party – have already declared the seats in the state they would contest from after reaching an agreement, on Sunday.

Bihar will have a seven-phase election, which will start from April 11.

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