Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) have got into a seat-sharing deal with each other, leaving their UPA partner Indian National Congress in the lurch.

Congress was counting on contesting in more seats from Bihar state in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, and had believed it would be able to wrangle a better deal for itself from the Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav. According to the seat-sharing deal for the Lok Sabha elections announced by RJD and LJP, there will be just three seats left for the Congress. This would mean that unless fruitful negotiations take place between RJD, LJP and Congress, Congress would have to fight on its own in Bihar. Not a welcome state of affairs for the leading part of the UPA under any circumstances.

As a part of the seat-sharing agreement between RJD and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) for Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad conceded four Lok Sabha seats from his party’s quota to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). LJP, according to the agreement, will now contest 12 seats in Bihar, up from the 8 seats which had been set aside for it in 2004, but still short of the 16 constituencies demanded by it. The agreement was made yesterday. “The alliance will happen cent per cent,” Union Minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters. RJD will contest 25 seats in Bihar.

Paswan also explained, “Some adjustments are made when talks happen. Patliputra was also among the 16 seats we demanded but Ranjan Yadav whom we wanted to field there has now left,” he added. He also clarified that the alliance will be on honourable conditions and all allies would contest on equal footing.

Lalu Prasad Yadav also offered words on the occasion, “We’re fighting to form a secular government,” Lalu told reporters. “We’re with the UPA and will remain with the UPA,” he added.

That may be so technically – but the much-vanunted trust between Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav has now been broken, and the Congress is taking it as a betrayal. That way, this is very similar to the way Naveen patnaik’s BJD ditched the BJP in Orissa when it came to deciding on seats for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Between the two strong caste-leaders Paswan and Lalu, there is a good chance that they would be able to put up a strong fight against the reasonably popular Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United). In the last general election, the UPA had bagged 29 seats from Bihar state, while the JD(U)-BJP combine could manage just 11. The RJD bagged 22, while the LJP could only win four.

The seats set aside for the LJP include Hajipur (SC), Samastipur (SC), Nawada, Paschim Champaran, Supaul, Araria, Purnia, Katihar, Begusarai, Nalanda and Jamui (SC). For the 12th seat, there is a toss-up between Muzaffarpur and Gaya (SC).

No Congress leader was present at the press conference. When asked about the absence of Congress leaders, the railway minister said “We have not called them to the press conference.” In the last elections, the three parties RJD, Congress and LJP had contested under a pre-poll agreement in which CPI and NCP were also a part. CPI is now no longer with the UPA and NCP has already announced that it would contest 14 seats.

Of the four constituencies from where it had contested in 2004, Congress had won Aurangabad, Madhubani and Sasaram seats.

Lalu and Paswan had parted ways in the 2005 assembly elections. This time around however Lalu is said to have been under tremendous pressure from its MPs as well as senior leaders who wanted him to not contest less than 24 seats.

Congress has the interests of the UPA to keep in mind, and potential government forming once the elections are over. So the party would find it difficult to take on RJD and LJP alleging betrayal, as that might boomerang after the election results are announced.