While the tussle for seats has not been resolved, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In principle the two parties agreed to contest the forthcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra together, Mr. Pawar said after the meeting.
NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said that it was also decided that talks on seat sharing will happen at the State level and any unresolved issues would be brought to the party leadership if needed. Mr. Malik said while the Congress and the NCP had agreed to contest together in principle, the formula for seat sharing was yet to be thrashed out.
The NCP is demanding 144 of the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra and the Congress is reluctant to give so much ground to its alliance partner. The Congress won two seats of the 48 Lok Sabha seats while the NCP did a little better with four in the general elections.
Sanjay Dutt of the Maharashtra Congress said that the party was not averse to an alliance but there should be no conditions. The NCP is demanding 144 seats when it had contested 114 in 2009. The Congress may not accept that it should contest only in 144 seats, down from the 174 it had fielded candidates in 2009.
