RANCHI: The newly-appointed state president of RJD, Gautam Sagar Rana on Tuesday announced that his party will approach the mahagathbandhan partners to claim Chatra parliamentary seat for his party as a condition to come back to grand alliance. Rana said his party is determined to fight from two seats — Chatra and Palamu — in the Lok Sabha elections He further said RJD is in the process of forming a delegation led by the party’s principal general secretary and former MLA Sanjay Singh Yadav to begin negotiations with mahagathbandhan allies.“We are hopeful that the opposition parties will take a decision on the issue soon,” Rana said, adding, “The mahagathbandhan does not even have a strong candidate from Chatra. In contrast, our prospective candidate has been working at the grass roots level for the past six months.”Rana said that he had spoken to RJD acting President Tejashwi Yadav, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, on the issue and the latter has assured to him take it up with senior Congress leaders.RJD had walked out of Jharkhand’s mahagathbandhan on Sunday, soon after its constituents — Congress, JMM, JVM-P — announced their seat-sharing formula, leaving just one seat (Palamu) for RJD, against its claim of two seats. Rana assumed charge as RJD’s state president on Tuesday after his predecessor Annapurna Devi switched over to BJP on Monday.Rana stressed Devi’s defection to BJP will have no bearing on RJD. “She did not raise any issue before quitting the RJD. We had offered her to fight from Chatra but she did not show any interest, but switched to BJP suddenly,” he said.

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