NCP wants UPA to collectively decide on Assembly polls

Two days after Congress projected a united picture of the UPA, Sharad Pawar's NCP today demanded immediate meeting of the Coordination Committee to collectively decide on the upcoming Assembly elections in four states.
The demand of the NCP, the second largerst party in the UPA with nine members in Lok Sabha, could create unease in the Congress which fights elections in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan on its own and has no plans for an alliance.
In the last Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had seat- sharing arrangements with the NCP mainly in Maharashtra with the AICC then suggesting that it had gone for state-specific alliances and not a national tie-up.

Congress-NCP have been sharing power in Maharashtra since 1999, a few months after Pawar parted ways with the Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin.
"UPA Coordination Committee meeting should be called immediately so that the coalition partners can deliberate on strengthening the alliance," NCP chief spokesman D P Tripathi told reporters here.
Tripathi's statement implied that the Congress should fight the Assembly polls in the states, which is generally a Congress versus BJP tussle, as UPA.

Appealing to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to convene such a meeting, he said this was needed for deciding on a "collective strategy" for the polls.

Tripathi said this was the "considered view" of the party which has been a "responsible constituent of the UPA till now."
Last year, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and senior leader Praful Patel had resigned from the Union Cabinet demanding regular meetings of the UPA Coordination Committee but were persuaded by the Prime Minister to withdraw their decision.