Patna, Sept. 13: The seat allocation talks among the JDU, RJD and the Congress are believed to be in the advanced stage of finalisation.
JDU state unit president Bashishtha Narayan Singh emerging out of marathon meetings attended by chief minister Nitish Kumar, JDU national president Sharad Yadav and other party functionaries said: "Unlike the NDA, we have no confusion and talks are on at every level. Nitish ji and Laluji are also in constant talks. Soon we would reach at a conclusion and we may announce the seats phase-wise or announce all 243 seats in one go."?
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Nitish will have another round of meeting today by late evening as the process of communication are going on at the higher level for the past two days.
"There is an important meeting tonight in which leaders of all three parties would be present, there are possibilities that in the meeting, we may reach at a logical conclusion," said Bashishtha.
Saturday late night Nitish had a long meeting with Sharad Yadav, Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee President (BPCC) Ashok Choudhary and All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary K.L. Sharma on the allocation of seats.
Sharad, who is in the role of the mediator, had visited Lalu's residence late last night and returned to Nitish's residence after an hour's meeting.
While speaking to The Telegraph BPCC president Ashok Choudhary said: "Talks are in the final stages and we are hopeful to make everything clear in a day or two. There is no confusion among the leaders over the seat allocation as talks are on in right track."?
Before attending the marathon meeting, which lasted for five hours, Sharad said: "Issues related to internal conflict has been sorted out and announcement on seat allocations would be made soon".
As talks are being held, ticket aspirants are flocking to the residence of Nitish and Lalu. After waiting for four hours, Nitish allowed the ticket aspirants to submit their resumes and also met them at his residence.
The same scenario was visible at Lalu's 10 Circular Road residence, where ticket aspirants had gathered in large numbers. However, like Nitish, Lalu did not allow the ticket aspirants to enter his house except the known faces such as the party functionaries and the existing MLAs.
Out of the 243 seats, the JDU and the RJD have shared 100 seats each and 40 seats were given to the Congress. Three seats are still in the kitty of the grand alliance and there are high chances that it may go to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) as its senior leader and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren had met Nitish and Lalu and had expressed his desire to join the grand alliance "to defeat the BJP".
The grand alliance can afford to give the three seats to the JMM, as it was earlier given to Samajwadi Party (SP), however, the party rejected the offer accusing the grand alliance of metting out a step motherly treatment to them.
