Ranchi, Nov. 1: Babulal Marandi’s talks with the Congress to forge a pre-poll alliance fell through today with the JVM leader refusing to play second fiddle to the ruling party at the Centre, leaving the BJP in an advantageous position in the run up to the five-phased Assembly elections in Jharkhand.

Both sides stuck to their guns with Marandi asking for at least 31 out of 81 seats while the Congress wasn’t ready to offer more than 25 seats to the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha.

Marandi rushed back to Ranchi today to chair a meeting of his party’s election committee to finalise nominees. The meeting went on till late in the evening.

The former chief minister, whose credibility could have been the Congress’s best asset, said he was keen to join hands with the Congress in defiance of his partymen’s sentiments for the sake of “forming a clean, stable and secular government” for Jharkhand.

“I gave the Congress a list of 31 seats. Now, they have to decide,” he said.

JVM general secretary Pradeep Yadav told The Telegraph the ball was now in the Congress’s court. “We will not have an alliance with any other party, including Lalu Prasad’s RJD. We will be declaring our nominees for all 81 seats tomorrow,” he said.

This left the Congress no option but to declare that it would go it alone in Jharkhand. While the party’s Jharkhand in-charge, K. Keshav Rao, expressed the party’s sentiments in New Delhi, the state unit chief, Pradeep Balmuchu, maintained the high command would take a decision based on feedback from local leaders who were openly against a tie up with the JVM.

“The Congress central election committee is meeting tomorrow to announce the nominees for the first phase of elections,” Balmuchu said.

Blaming Marandi for the break down in talks, Union minister Subodh Kant Sahay said it was he who was unrelenting on the number of seats. “Marandi simply sought tickets for individuals without assessing the ground realities,” he claimed.

According to sources, the Congress wanted Marandi to be satisfied with 25 seats, based on the findings of an internal party survey which said that was the number of seats the JVM could win if there was a pre-poll alliance.

Marandi, however, trashed the party’s survey report. He was understood to have told Ahmed Patel, the political secretary to Sonia Gandhi, Mukul Wasnik and Rao that he knew the ground realities in all the 81 Assembly constituencies and the Congress should believe him.

State Congress leaders were never in favour of forging an alliance with the JVM, fearing they would be overshadowed by Marandi, who is known to command a considerable following in the state, particularly in Santhal Pargana, also the JMM’s stronghold.

With Marandi and Congress failing to join hands, the BJP, fresh from its good showing in the Lok Sabha elections in the state, stands to gain the most. Hence, all eyes are now in Patna where seat-sharing talks are on with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).