Cong, NCP talks for alliance in Gujarat civic polls fail

Congress and NCP today decided to contest the local body elections in Gujarat separately after the two parties failed to arrive at an agreement over the seat-sharing for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).
Fifteen NCP candidates filed nominations across 12 wards of AMC today, the last day of filing of nominations.
"Congress had agreed to give us five out of the 192 seats in AMC, but last night they asked to return one of these seats. So we decided to go it alone," said Nikulsingh Tomar, state youth NCP president.
Congress's Chetan Rawal said his party had hoped to stitch up an alliance, but as the negotiations failed, both parties decided to contest separately.

However, Congress was still hopeful of convincing the NCP to resuscitate the alliance as the candidates can withdrew their forms in the next two days, party sources said.
Elections to six municipal corporations including the AMC will be held on November 22 while 31 district panchayats, 230 tehsil ('taluka') panchayats and 56 municipalities would go to polls on November 29.
Most of these local bodies including all the six municipal corporations are controlled by BJP at present.