Cong to field candidates against Lalu, Paswan

With RJD-LJP combine contesting all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, Congress today announced that it would field its nominees against RJD chief Lalu Prasad and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.

"RJD and LJP have made Congress their enemy number one in the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar," state PCC chief Anil Kumar Sharma said.

He alleged that the fielding of candidates by the two parties "smacked of a conspiracy to defeat the party's nominees and give advantage to NDA."

Congress will field candidates against Lalu in Pataliputra constituency and against Paswan in Hajipur, Sharma said.

However, the party failed to field its candidate against Lalu in Saran, the filing of nomination for which ended yesterday.

Charging the RJD-LJP combine with playing 'politics of opportunism', Sharma said Lalu has put up his party's state president Abdul Bari Siddiqui against Union Minister of State for Home and Congress candidate Shakeel Ahmed in Madhubani.

"It is meaningless to point out that it is bound to help BJP nominee Hukumdeo Narain Yadav in the parliamentary constituency," he said.

Sharma alleged that Lalu has fielded Lalan Paswan 'merely to defeat' Union Minister Meira Kumar in Sasaram and Shakeel Ahmed Khan in Aurangabad against sitting Congress MP Nikhil Kumar.

 The Congress has so far fielded 30 candidates out of the total 40 constituencies in the state. While it has left Katihar seat for NCP nominee Tariq Anwar, it is yet to announce its candidates for the remaining seats.

 "The candidature on the seats will be decided by the central election committee of All India Congress Committee very soon," Sharma said.