Lack of coordination and miscommunication caused the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to face embarrassment on Monday. The party had planned to release its manifesto for the Assembly polls on Monday, but had to cancel it at the last minute.
Nawab Malik, NCP’s city chief, said, “Since the decision to contest this poll as an alliance has been finalised, we have decided to release a joint manifesto of the Opposition at a joint press conference, which will be held soon.” Mr. Malik said fighting the polls as a united Opposition had been always on the cards, but the party had initiated proceedings to release its manifesto, causing the confusion. He said, “Since we had prepared the document, we thought of releasing it today. However, after consulting with the rest of the Opposition, it was decided that releasing a joint manifesto would be better.”
According to sources, the senior NCP leadership did not like the idea of presenting its manifesto at a time when the united Opposition front is finalising its seat sharing formula along with smaller parties. “It would have sent the message that the Opposition is not united even on preparing a common vision document for the State. Therefore, it was decided to postpone the release date,” said a senior party leader involved in the NCP’s manifesto committee.
Mr. Malik said seat sharing talks with the smaller parties is on track. He said, “Talks with the Peasants and Workers Party, farmer leader Raju Shetti, the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, the Left and the Samajwadi Party are positive. They have agreed to join the Opposition front. We will be giving 38 seats to these parties, while the Congress and the NCP will be contesting 125 seats each.”
Mr. Malik criticised the BJP after it questioned why the NCP was against campaigning for the elections on the issue of nationalism. He said his party’s name itself has the word ‘nationalist’. Mr. Malik said, “We are bigger nationalists than the BJP. They should not give us lectures on nationalism.”
