Cong interviews aspirants for NCP 'quota' Assembly seats

After its ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) decided to interview aspirants for all 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra, the state Congress unit, which had earlier carried out such an exercise for only 174 seats, has interviewed aspirants for the remaining 114 seats.
The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) recently completed interviewing aspirants for 174 seats hoping to leave the rest of the Assembly seats to NCP.
However, after realising that NCP is in no mood to settle for a lesser number of Assembly seats, MPCC decided to interview aspirants for all the seats.
"Prominent leaders of the state Congress sought to know the political situation in the 114 Assembly seats from the aspirants," said MPCC spokesperson Sachin Sawant.

The interviews were held at Tilak Bhavan in the presence of MPCC chief Manikrao Thakre, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and former chief minister Ashok Chavan.
In 2009, NCP had contested 114 seats while the Congress had put up candidates in 174 Assembly segments.
But this year, despite a poor showing by both parties in the recent Lok Sabha elections -- NCP won four and Congress got two seats in the state -- NCP has demanded to contest 144 Assembly seats.