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Congress and NCP leaders met this morning to decide on seat sharing for the Maharashtra Assembly elections but the talks were “inconclusive.”
Senior Congress leader Narayan Rane told presspersons that the two sides have decided to meet again at 8.30 pm as “no solution could be arrived at.”
The meeting was held at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s official residence — Varsha.
The Congress has been refusing to yield to the NCP’s demand for equal seats, while the latter has rejected the offer of 124 of the State’s 288 Assembly seats.
NCP leader Praful Patel and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, State party chief Sunil Tatkare, and other leaders attended the meeting to resolve the seat-sharing deadlock and salvage the 15-year-old alliance.
State Congress chief Manikrao Thakre, who was present at the meeting, also said the “talks were inconclusive.”
NCP’s core committee chaired by party chief Sharad Pawar had gone into a huddle here yesterday where it reaffirmed that the alliance should continue but insisted on getting a larger share of the state’s 288 Assembly seats than the 124 offered by Congress.
The NCP had contested 114 seats and the Congress 174 in the 2009 Assembly elections. The former has been insisting on fielding candidates in half of the 288 seats, citing it had double the number of Lok Sabha seats in the State than the Congress. In the worst-ever performance for the ruling alliance, NCP had won 4 Lok Sabha seats against the Congress’ 2.
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