21 Mar : The UPA alliance on Saturday collapsed in Bihar with Congress announcing it will contest 37 seats in the Lok Sabha elections and Lalu Prasad’s RJD declaring it will field candidates in three seats held by the Congress.
"We have decided to contest in 37 seats in Bihar. We want to leave three seats, two in which Lalu Prasad would contest and one in which Ram Vilas Paswan would contest," senior Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters in New Delhi.
Ridiculing Congress’ decision to leave three seats in Bihar, RJD chief Prasad said, "why are they leaving three seats? Let them contest all 40 seats."
The controversy began after LJP and RJD stitched up an alliance in Bihar, distributing the seats among themselves and leaving only three for Congress.
RJD will contest 25 seats from Bihar, while LJP will field its candidates on 12 seats.
Meanwhile, Congress today came out with a second list of 15 candidates for Uttar Pradesh bringing the total number of candidates announced so far in the state to 39.