Thursday, January 13 2005 12:45 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: In pressure tactics against the Congress tying up unilaterally with JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) in Jharkhand Assembly elections, the RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Left parties and the NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) got together for contesting polls in Bihar and asked Congress to join them.

"We discussed all issues relating to seat sharing and our effort is to ensure that all secular forces come together in Bihar to counter the communal forces.

"All the four of us (RJD-CPM (Communist Party of India Marxist)-CPI (Communist Party of India)-NCP) will be going together and we are talking to Congress and asked it to come on board and everything will be clear in the coming two to three days," said CPM leader Sitaram Yechury after talks with RJD leader and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad at the CPM headquarters in New Delhi.

While Laloo and P C Gupta represented RJD, the NCP was represented by Tariq Anwar and CPI by D Raja.

Laloo's meeting with Yechury followed RJD chief's talks with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

At his meeting with Sonia, the formula suggested to her was that Congress would get the seats it had won in the last Assembly elections and those in which it came second, which came to about 25 seats, and it was difficult to yield more than this, CPM sources said.