Cong kicks off LS polls seat share talks with Bihar allies

The Congress on Sunday began the formal seat-sharing talks with its allies in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), with an aim to reach a "reasonable and respectable" arrangement in order to unitedly take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, people familiar with the matter said.

- Subhash Pathak

The Congress's five-member national alliance committee (NAC), headed by senior leader Mukul Wasnik, initiated the seat-sharing talks with authorised leaders of the JD(U) and the RJD in New Delhi, in a development that comes after several rounds of deliberations within the party, leaders of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) said.

"TI NAC is armed with statistics of past elections, party workers aspirations and worked out winnability factors for each and every seat before embarking on the seat-sharing exercise. We are ready to compromise but not willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of keeping INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc intact," a senior AICC leader familiar with the development said, requesting anonymity.