Monday, September 26 2005 14:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Confident about a consolidation of Muslim-dalit vote bank in favor of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) following Ramvilas Paswan's consistent advocacy of a Muslim chief minister, the party today (Sept 26, 2005) said it would contest 190 to 195 of the total 243 seats 'in complete alliance' with third front partners Communist Party of India (CPI), Republican Socialist Party (RSP) and Forward Bloc in the coming Bihar assembly polls.

The third front had finally taken shape and would contest all the seats and LJP would contest under a perfect seat-sharing arrangement, LJP spokesman Sanjay Singh told sources.

Paswan would announce the seat-sharing formula here tomorrow (Sept 27, 2005) or the day after in the presence of the leaders of CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP, he said.

''CPI is expected to contest 40 to 45 seats, while Forward Bloc and RSP would fight in less than 10 seats,'' he said.

LJP was also buoyed with the 'overwhelming' response to Paswan's public meetings during his ten days' stay here and had already short listed the names of candidates for the seats.

For each of the seats 30 to 40 people had filed applications and the number of aspirants this time was higher compared to last time, he said.

Reacting to his party's campaigner Khalid Noor, a look-alike of international terrorist Osama Bin Laden, walking out of LJP, Singh said, ''Leaders keep coming and going but the party has remained firm in its resolve to make a Muslim the Chief Minister of Bihar.''

Singh termed as misleading All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Digvijay Singh's recent statement that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led alliance might take the help of LJP in forming the government in the event of yet another hung house.