Goa NCP not happy with support to BJP in Maharashtra

Goa NCP president Nilkanth Halarnkar is "not happy" with the "unconditional outside support" offered by his party to the BJP in Maharashtra after it emerged as the single largest party in the just-concluded assembly election.

Speaking to IANS, Halarnkar, however, added that the post-counting offer for "unconditional outside support" may have been made by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra in the broader interest of Maharashtra.

"I am not happy," Halarnkar said, when asked to respond to the "outside support" offer by NCP, which put in a new level of intrigue to the government formation efforts of the BJP.

Winning 122 seats, the BJP is the single largest party in the yet-to-be-convened state assembly, while the Shiv Sena came second with 63, Congress was third with 42 and the NCP fourth with 41.

The BJP needs 23 more seats to reach the halfway mark in the 288 member state legislative assembly and having broken off its alliance with the Sena, a few days before the polls, is scouting for allies.

Halarnkar said that it was imperative that Maharashtra gets a stable government and only for that reason, the NCP could have offered outside help to the BJP.

While the NCP has always described the BJP as a communal party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the election campaign had called the NCP a 'Naturally Corrupt Party'.