Cong under pressure not to cede seats won in last LS polls:

The Congress was under pressure not to cede any of the nine seats that it had won during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to alliance partner JD(S) in Karnataka, party's state working president Eshwar Khandre said Friday.

"During the last Lok Sabha polls, when there was so called Modi wave, nine our MPs had won against the wave.

So there is a natural opinion or demand that these constituencieshave to remain in Congress' fold, I would like to say that itis appropriate," Khandre told reporters here.

The Congress MPs are said to have met party high command in Delhi recently and requested the leadership not tocede the seats won by the party last time to JD(S), during the seat sharing discussion.

The BJP had won 17 seats, Congress 9, and JD(S) 2, duringthe 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress and JD(S)that had bitterly fought against each other during the last parliamentary election and in May 2018 assembly polls joined hands to form a government in the state, as the election threw up a hung verdict.

Seat sharing is expected to be a litmus test for both the parties, mostly in the old Mysuru region constituencies, where JD(S) has emerged as a dominant force in recent past andCongress has its sitting MPs.

JD(S) has demanded 12 out 28 seats during the Lok Sabha polls.

Pradesh Congress Chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, indicatinghis party's reservation about JD(S)' demand for 12 seats, has already said that seat sharing between the ruling coalition partners will be based on the "merit".

Meanwhile, JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda maintaining that both parties would go to polls togethersaid that discussions were yet to take place with the Congress on seat sharing.

"Congress and we (JD(S)) are together. Ours is a small party. We will have to accept how much they give," Gowda told reporters in Hassan.

When pointed out that JD(S) has demanded 12 out of28 seats, he said, "we are yet to discuss this."