Friday, September 23 2005 11:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Taking a lead in announcing candidates for Bihar Assembly elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday night (Sept 22, 2005) came out with its first list of nominees for 80 of the 105 seats it will contest in the four-phased polls beginning on October 18.

The party, which has a pre-poll alliance with Janata Dal (JD) United (U), will finalise the names for rest of the constituencies within a week after talks with its partner, BJP Vice President and state unit chief Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters after the marathon meeting of party's Election Committee in New Delhi.

At least 37 of the candidates finalised yesterday are those who won the last Assembly elections earlier this year, he said after the meeting attended by BJP President L K Advani, senior party leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other leaders.

Two Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leaders, who were victorious in the last polls and have since joined BJP, have also been allotted tickets at their seats Bikram and Taraiyan, Modi said.

The list released does not cover all the seats the party will contest in the first and second phase. At least 61 seats will go to polls in the first phase while balloting will take place at 69 constituencies in the second phase on October 26.

Modi said his party was holding talks with JD-U to decide its candidates for the remaining 25 seats in the 243-member House.

"On a few seats, we need to collect more information," the BJP leader said.

The party contested 105 seats last time under an agreement with its alliance partner JDU. The two parties decided to fight the upcoming polls under the same arrangement.

Modi said there was no problem in finalisation of candidates for rest of the seats in consultation with JDU.

He, however, objected to certain remarks made by JDU leader Prabhunath Singh today on seat sharing, saying the alliance partner 'should not have given such a statement'.

The two parties will sit together in two or three days and sort out the matter, the BJP leader said.

The JD (U) leader took strong exception to BJP's objections over allocation of seats to former LJP MLAs a some Independents who had joined JD (U).

Charging its saffron ally with breaking its promise, Singh said further talks on seat-sharing would be held only after BJP agreed to leave those seats in favour of JD (U).

After the last assembly elections, 21 LJP MLAs and some Independents had come out in support of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Chief Ministerial candidate Nitish Kumar and it was agreed at that time that all of them would be re-nominated either as JD(U) or BJP candidates.