Congress, NCP poll seat sharing meeting inconclusive; discussion to resume in evening

The meeting between Congress and NCP leaders, held in Maharashtra today to resolve the deadlock over the seat sharing issue, proved to be inconclusive with Congress' Devendra Fadnavis saying that the discussion will be resumed in the evening.

"The discussion could not be concluded, it will be resumed in the evening," Rane told reporters here.

Earlier today, Majid Memon of the NCP had told ANI that differences had been narrowed down between the two parties and there should be no difficulty in forging a strong alliance.

However, ahead of today's meeting, major discussions were going on in both the party bastions.

An NCP core committee meeting was held in Mumbai on Monday, attended by party chief Sharad Pawar.

A meeting of Congress leaders was also held at Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's residence to discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said today that the NCP had realized that the Congress has become weak, so they wanted a larger share of the seats.

The stalemate between the Congress and NCP over seat sharing continues as the latter is not willing to contest in less than 136 seats. The Congress has reportedly offered only 125 seats to its ally keeping the rest of the seats with itself to contest in the upcoming state assembly polls.

During the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Congress had contested in 174 seats while the NCP had fought in 114 seats.

The polling for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra is scheduled to be held on October 15. The counting of votes will take place on October 19.