About a month after threatening each other with terminating their 15-year-old seat sharing alliance, a consensus has been reached between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar to contest the coming assembly polls together. Pawar had a brief meeting with Sonia in New Delhi on Wednesday to discuss seat sharing between their parties. Sources said the Congress is ready to part with 10 seats for the NCP. As per the existing formula, the Congress fights in 174 constituencies and the NCP in 114. “The Congress and the NCP will contest the assembly polls together,“ Pawar said after the meeting.
The Congress's rout in the Lok Sabha polls prompted the NCP to demand a greater share of assembly seats in the state. “We feel there should be respectful settlement on the seat-sharing formula and the NCP should be treated with respect,“ Pawar had said. His nephew, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, former Union minister Praful Patel and state NCP president Sunil Tatkare insisted on a 50:50 formula. Pawar even threatened to terminate the alliance if the formula was not agreed upon.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and state Congress president Manikrao Thakre strongly objected to the NCP's proposal, saying there was absolutely no substance in its contention that its strength had improved. Chavan ruled out any compromise on seat-sharing.
Nevertheless, Thakre said the possibility of adjustment to accommodate independents was not ruled out.
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