Maha Cong expected to finalise LS names during 2-day meet

The Maharashtra Congress is expected to finalise its candidates for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections during the two-day parliamentary board meeting of its state unit beginning here Tuesday.

The parliamentary board is expected to finalise a list of candidates from Marathwada, north Maharashtra, western Maharashtra Tuesday, party sources said.

The process for Vidarbha and Mumbai will be taken up on January 30, they added.

As per the party procedure, the board will discuss names submitted by the district committees, and then forward the names finalised to the All-India Congress Committee.

They said seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party as well as other parties is "almost finalised" and should conclude "soon", they said.

As part of its poll campaign, Congress leaders will hold at least 50 meetings in February and would also reach districts of the state which could not be covered by its 'jan sangharsh yatra', they said.

While the Congress, NCP and Raju Shetti's Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana have agreed to an alliance, parties like Prakash Ambedkar's Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) and the Samajwadi Party are not yet on board.

Out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress and NCP had not yet reached an agreement on Ahmednagar, Nandurbar, Raver, Jalna, Aurangabad and Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg.

Of these, the NCP traditionally used to fight Raver and Ahmednagar seats.

The NCP gave up its claim on Pune and Yavatmal-Washim after talks between Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and NCP's Sharad Pawar.

Sources said the Congress is likely to fight 26 Lok Sabha seats and the NCP 22.