NEW DELHI, January 20: After nearly one month of stiff bargaining, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) today reached an understanding on seat-sharing in Orissa. The BJP is to contest nine of the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State while the BJD will field its candidates for 12. The BJP and its allies would get a big boost because of the alliance, BJP President L K Advani said.Three more former Congress MPs joined the BJP today: B P Maurya, once a Union minister and AICC general secretary who was close to former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao, Mohan Delkar (three-time MP from Dadra Nagar Haveli) and Gopal Tandel (two-time MP from Diu and Daman).All three had quit the Congress a few weeks ago. Describing the Congress as a fast-disintegrating force, Maurya said the BJP had ``learnt a lot and had acquired a liberal outlook.''Meanwhile, party sources said that talks with Ajit Singh of the Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party (BKKP) were on and were expected to be finalised by tomorrow, when the BJP hopes to decide most of its candidates for Uttar Pradesh.The BJP's central election committee, which began its second round of meetings today to finalise candidates for the parliamentary elections, was to discuss UP, but this has been deferred until tomorrow as State unit leaders are holding discussions with Ajit Singh. The committee finalised candidates for six states today - Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar, Himachal, Goa and Orissa. West Bengal, Karnataka and UP are to be taken up tomorrow. The list of candidates is to be released tomorrow.
