In what could be a setback to the Congress plan for consolidating anti-BJP votes in Gujarat, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a partner of the United Progressive Alliance, declared on Monday that it would contest all 182 seats in the Assembly alone.
Senior NCP leader and former Union Minister Praful Patel made the announcement after talks with the Congress failed to reach an agreement on sharing of seats.
Going it alone
Mr. Patel said his party would contest all seats.
“We will release our candidate list today [Monday]. I think it would be better for us to fight all the seats on our own than in alliance with the Congress,” he said.
The NCP and the Congress fought the 2007 and 2012 Assembly polls in an alliance.
The NCP has two MLAs now.
The Congress alleged that the alliance had broken down because of the NCP’s demand for more seats than it should have in the prevalent situation in the State.
The Congress on Sunday night included the seat of an NCP MLA in its first list of 77 candidates. It named contestants on seats demanded by the NCP, including the Kutiyana constituency in Porbandar district from where Kandhal Jadeja is the sitting MLA of the Sharad Pawar-led party.
Gehlot’s view
Ashok Gehlot, Congress general secretary in charge of Gujarat, said, “The NCP should have demanded seats as per their situation in Gujarat.”
“The seat-sharing alliance would have been possible only if they had made limited demands,” Mr. Gehlot said.
