Cong strikes deal with NCP in Maharashtra

After it failed to strike pre-poll deals with allies in UP and Bihar, Congress on Monday managed to cobble up a seat-sharing pact in Maharashtra with NCP under which it will field 26 candidates and leave 22 seats for the Sharad Pawar-led party in the Lok Sabha elections.

Ending days of suspense, the seat-sharing was announced at a joint press conference by Congress leader AK Antony and NCP leaders Praful Patel and DP Tripathi.

It saw the NCP getting one seat more than in the previous Lok Sabha poll. The arrangement has been clinched at a time when Congress has failed to strike seat-sharing deals in key states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where the UPA appeared to have suffered major cracks.

This is the second formal alliance of Congress with a UPA partner after the one with JMM in Jharkhand.

Both Congress and NCP have been together in Lok Sabha polls since 2004 and are jointly in power in Maharashtra for the last 10 years.

Amid projections of closeness of Pawar with the Third Front, Patel said, "We are in an alliance with Congress. We shall stand by the alliance and support fully all the candidates. There is not to have any other understanding."

Patel also dismissed questions on the issue of Pawar as Prime Minister noting that his party chief already clarified that NCP was a small party and "there is no need of words-splitting."
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However, both Congress and NCP remained evasive whether the alliance would also extend to other states like Goa and Gujarat.

"We have right now finalised seat-sharing in Maharashtra," Patel and Antony said.

They also sidestepped questions whether Samajwadi Party could be accommodated in the alliance in Maharashtra. Asked how the various RPI factions would be accommodated by the two parties, the leaders said they will "take a decision very shortly and we want to take our friends with us."

Despite the pact, the Osmanabad seat is appearing to have become the bone of contention, and both parties said they will hold discussion on exchange of few seats in the next two days.

Reports had it that former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is keen to contest from Osmanabad in the Marathwada region and therefore the Congress is pleading with NCP to give the seat and take Jalna instead.

Marathwada is the home turf of Deshmukh as also Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and former Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

Incidentally, Congress has been successful in arriving at a seat-sharing arrangement in West Bengal with Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, which like NCP was formed by leaders who parted ways with Congress.