M A I N   N E W S

Announcement on seat sharing in Bihar soon, says Paswan
Prashant Sood
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 24
Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ramvilas Paswan today said that seat-sharing agreement between his party, the RJD, the Congress and the Left parties for 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar would be finalised in ‘a day or two’.

Mr Paswan, who is contesting from Hajipur, said final round of discussions had been held and an announcement about seat sharing would be made by all party leaders jointly.

He said senior leaders of the parties of ‘secular front’ in Bihar had yesterday met at the residence of senior Congress leader Arjun Singh to thrash out the seat-sharing arrangement. Mr Paswan said it was the first such meeting of the parties which were contesting against the NDA in Bihar.

The LJP, which had sought 12 seats in Bihar, was likely to contest eight seats.

Mr Paswan said LJP would contest 40 Lok Sabha seats in the country, including six in Jharkhand, two in Rajasthan, three in Jammu and Kashmir and one each in Haryana and Chhattisgarh.

He said the LJP had sought 10 seats from the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. In Madhya Pradesh, where LJP was part of the Jan Kranti Manch comprising a few smaller parties, it had sought five seats from the Congress.

The LJP also wanted to contest from Gujarat where Mr Paswan had campaigned for the Congress in the Assembly polls. The LJP had no understanding with the Congress in Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Mr Paswan expressed confidence about the front of ‘secular parties’ winning all 40 seats in Bihar. ‘‘ The LJP, the RJD, the Congress and the Left parties together have more than 50 per cent vote share in the state,’’ he said.

Asked if delay in the announcement of seat-sharing agreement in Bihar was due to the Congress being not satisfied with the seats allotted to it by RJD leader Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr Paswan said he could not answer for another party.

However, Mr Paswan said that Congress was a secular party and he had joined the secular front in Bihar because of the Congress.

Mr Paswan, who had contested the last Lok Sabha polls as part of the NDA, accused the BJP-led government of misleading people through `India Shining’ campaign.

The LJP leader, who today presided over the national executive meeting of the party, said the election manifesto would be released on March 26. The manifesto, he said, would detail the ‘failures’ of the NDA government and give out the party’s programme for various sections including the youth, women, SCs, STs. 

13 file papers as nominations begin
Tribune News Service and Agencies

New Delhi, March 24
The entry of Congress rebels against the party’s ally, the NCP, in two constituencies of Maharashtra marked an otherwise sedate start to the filing of nominations for the first phase of staggered Lok Sabha elections whose process was set in motion with the President issuing the notification for the elections to 141 seats spread over 15 states.

In all, 13 candidates, mostly Independents, submitted nominations across the country with the highest number of six in Maharashtra, followed by three Independents in Karnataka, two Left Front nominees in Tripura and one BJP man in Manipur and one in Chhattisgarh.

Indrakumar Devraj Rahi filed nominations as a Congressman in the Bhandara constituency in Maharashtra even though as per the seat-sharing accord with the NCP, the latter’s spokesman Praful Patel is the official candidate of the state’s ruling alliance.

Similarly, another dissident Congressman Shamim Ahmed Khan has filed nominations in the Parbhani constituency of the state where NCP’s Suresh Varpudkar is the official candidate. With major political parties, barring the BJP, yet to finalise their list of candidates, 15 persons, three for the Lok Sabha constituencies and 12 for the state Assembly, submitted papers in Karnataka.