New Delhi, Jan. 13: The Congress today dropped enough hints about contesting a third of Bihar?s Assembly seats with or without allies, a day after its seat-sharing talks with the Rashtriya Janata Dal collapsed.

The party would field candidates ?on its own? in around 80 of the total 243 seats, highly-placed Congress sources said.

They were not impressed by RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav?s talk in Patna today that he would give the Congress a few more seats ? above the couple of dozen offered during failed negotiations ? for the sake of an eleventh-hour pact.

The Congress would, however, avoid fielding its candidates in the seats held by the RJD, the Left parties and the Lok Janshakti Party, all of which support the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre.

?Even at this stage (after failed talks with the RJD), we are in touch with all our UPA allies. We do not want secular votes to be split,? a Congress source said.

They ruled out the possibility of any understanding with the Janata Dal (United) though LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan had proposed an alliance with the Congress and the Dal (U).

If a common UPA front does not materialise, the Congress might fight some seats along with some allies, without them in some others, and go for ?friendly? contests in the rest, the sources said. The party leadership, contrary to indications yesterday, appeared a bit uncertain about forging an open tie-up with the LJP.

The opinion within veered round to hammering out a tacit understanding with Paswan as this could help the Congress attract its traditional upper-caste vote base and also not antagonise Laloo Prasad altogether.

The Congress? poll strategy for Bihar in the wake of the receding prospects of a tie-up with the RJD kept Sonia Gandhi busy almost through the day as she conferred with senior colleagues.

Arjun Singh, who negotiated with Laloo Prasad, is understood to have briefed her in detail today.