Congress-JMM reach a consensus on seat-sharing in Jharkhand, leave two seats for RJD.

Byline: ANI

New Delhi, Mar 17 (ANI): United Progressive Alliance (UPA) allies Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) arrived at a seat-sharing formula for 14 seats in Jharkhand on Wednesday, leaving only two seats for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

The two parties met in New Delhi and came to a conclusion that the Congress and JMM would contest from seven and five constituencies respectively.

The meeting was attended by JMM chief Shibu Soren, party MP Hemlal Murmu, Balmuchu and AICC leader and incharge of party's Jharkhand affairs K Keshav Rao.

Both parties have got one seat each in addition to the seats on which they have sitting MPs.

While the Hazaribagh constituency is taken by the JMM, Koderma has gone to the Congress.

However, the two parties are still to decide on the Chatra and Palamu constituencies, currently represented in the Lok Sabha by RJD MPs.

The Congress has reportedly warned that it can even contest from Palamu and Chatra, if the RJD and LJP do not enter into a respectable seat-sharing pact with it in Bihar.

The 2009 Jharkhand general elections would happen in two phases. The first phase is scheduled on April 16 and the second phase on April 22 and 23.

The Congress-JMM announcement has acted as a counter to the Tuesday's RJD-LJP deal in Bihar, which had left only three out of the forty Lok Sabha seats for the Congress.

LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav announced that out of the 40 seats in Bihar, the RJD will contest 25 seats and the LJP will contest 12 seats. The remaining three seats were left for the Congress.

This deal had angered the Congressmen, who had termed the deal as unacceptable. (ANI)

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