Cong forms panel to decide seat-sharing deal with NCP

The Congress and its ruling partner in Maharashtra, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), moved forward in sealing the seat-sharing deal for the ensuing Assembly elections. After several days of informal talks that hammered out most of the contentious areas of the alliance, the Congress today agreed to form a committee to decide the seat-sharing arrangements.

This time, the NCP has agreed to contest in a lesser number of seats than it did in 2004. Both had contested the 2004 elections in alliance. The Congress had contested 157 seats and won 69, while the NCP contested 124 seats and bagged 71 five years ago.

The Sharad Pawar-led NCP wanted to contest in 119 seats but that too, has been shot down by the Congress. Sonia Gandhi’s party cited the delimitation exercise and the recent performance of the two parties in the Lok Sabha elections as their claim to contest more seats. According to top Congress sources, the party may leave 115-116 seats for the NCP and will contest more than 165 seats in the 284-member Maharashtra Assembly.

Defence Minister A K Antony — in charge of the Congress’ Maharashtra affairs — held a meeting today with NCP chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. After the meeting, the two leaders announced that the formal talks will now begin. The next round of talks will focus on identifying the seats for the two parties.

Leaders of both the Congress and NCP met in Mumbai tonight on the seat-sharing issue.

Apart from Deshmukh, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, Union Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, PCC chief Manikrao Thakre, senior leader Narayan Rane and Mumbai Congress chief Kripa Shankar Singh will represent the Congress at the talks. The NCP team will consist of Civil Aviation Minister Minister Praful Patel, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, state party chief R R Patil, senior leader Ajit Pawar and Mumbai NCP chief Sachin Ahir, The two sides are tight-lipped about the seats they intend to fight. “Nothing is finalised,” Deshmukh said when asked whether the talks meant that the two parties would be jointly contesting the assembly elections. Sharad Pawar too, refused to say anything. “Don’t trouble me unnecessarily,” he quipped when asked about the seat sharing arrangements.