Congress endorses Pawar, says alliances as per state's situation

Endorsing NCP chief Sharad Pawar's views that a pre-poll grand alliance would not being practical for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress on Monday said alliances need to be sewed up on a state-to-state basis.

"Alliances need to be sewed up state-to-state. There can be no 'one-size-fit-all alliance'

"Every state has regional parties. The NCP and the Congress, just to cite an example from Maharashtra, have been in an alliance and talks are currently on to sew together the same alliance," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

"But, an NCP-Congress alliance cannot be transposed in Gujarat, Rajasthan or in Delhi. We feel that in Gujarat, we do need to have an alliance," he added.

Pawar earlier on Monday said a pre-poll grand alliance in the next year's Lok Sabha elections is "not practical" while maintaining that non-BJP parties may come together for state-specific alliances to take on the ruling BJP.

Meanwhile Surjewala said: "An RJD-Congress alliance was stitched in Bihar along with JD-U, who was also with us. We do not know what will happen in the future. We have decided that we will fight that election again together.

"But RJD and Congress will not fight together in Uttar Pradesh, as the coalition partners will be different there. So, Sharad Pawarji is 100 per cent right. There is no one-size-fit-all solution. It has to be sewed up state-to-state."

--IANS

sid/vd