Sources said the Congress would field Bhagwanbhai Vekaria from Jetpur and Raghavji Patel from Jodia-Dhrol. This will be officially announced on Thursday evening, sources added. The RJP is most likely to clear Haribhai Jogi for Jetpur and Jagmohan Solanki for Jodia-Dhrol seat.

About progress of the talks, a Congressman alleged that the RJP leaders were not responding to his party's messages about the meeting time and venue. "So far we agreed only on one point that we will stick to our respective stands on seat sharing issue," he said. The RJP is asking for one seat out of the two, while the Congress is in no mood to oblige.

The major hitch for the Congress was how to dissuade new entrant Chandu Faldu from seeking party ticket. According to the understanding with the party bosses, Chandu Faldu will campaign in favour of Raghavji Patel in Jodia-Dhrol in lieu of a Lok Sabha ticket either from Porbandar or Jamnagar as and when elections are announced. His campaigning skills there will be matched by BJP MP Chandresh Patel in that constituency.

The scene in the RJP camp is rather gloomy over collapse of the talks. Its State unit president Madhusudan Mistry on Wednesday described the Congress refusal to co-operate as "unfortunate". Chairman of the RJP parliamentary board Dilip Parikh alleged that Congress' insistence to contest both the seats led to failure of talks.

He said the RJP's proposal of sharing one seat each was the need of the hour and it was based on past experience in the recent by-elections in the State.

"Now that the Congress has refused our offer, we will contest both the seats with full might," he said. Mistry said the RJP stood a fair chance of wresting both the seats from the BJP.

According to top RJP leaders, during the 1995 Assembly elections, the BJP, the Congress and the Janata Dal candidates besides an Independent got 45.81 per cent, 21.78 per cent and 14.37 per cent votes.