Maha alliances fail to break seat-sharing deadlock

Plagued by seemingly irreconcilable differences, rival political combinations in Maharashtra today failed to break the deadlock over seat-sharing for the October 15 Assembly polls, nominations for which close just three days from now.
A day after their top state leaders met for the first and only time so far to discuss distribution of seats, there were frosty vibes between NCP and Congress, in power in Maharashtra for the past 15 years, with the latter ruling out any further talks.
Mahayuti, a conglomeration of six parties led by Shiv Sena and BJP that came into existence just before the May Lok Sabha elections, despite intermittent declarations of intent of staying united, continued to squabble over the number of seats each constituent will contest.

NCP's demands for rotational chief ministership for the party in the event of the ruling alliance coming to power yet again and half of the state's 288 Assembly seats apparently thwarted further discussions on seat-sharing.
Congress has offered NCP 124 seats, 10 more than it had contested in the 2009 Assembly polls.
Congress' campaign committee chief Narayan Rane said Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was in discussion with the party high command over NCP's demand for rotational chief ministership and a decision on the alliance would be taken this evening.

"High Command's views are being sought on the latest NCP demand and a decision will be communicated later today," he said when asked about the status of the Congress-NCP talks and added there would be no more meetings with the ally on seat-sharing.

However, there was no announcement on the issue till late evening.
In an indication that the alliance could be in trouble, Chavan said though Congress was keen on continuing its ties with NCP "impossible conditions" were making things "difficult".
"Congress is keen on continuing the alliance with NCP to keep the communal forces at bay. But if impossible conditions are put, things become difficult. Had the talks started without pre-conditions, we would have sorted out all issues by now," Chavan told reporters in his hometown Karad.
Though the NCP core committee, including party chief Sharad Pawar, met for long hours discussing the seat-sharing imbroglio, the leaders remained tight-lipped about their plans.

"I have nothing to say on this," said senior leader and a close Pawar aide Praful Patel after the meeting.