Seat-sharing: CONG-NCP seal deal except for 6 seats

MUMBAI: The seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have nearly concluded with the parties preparing to declare their pre-poll alliance by January. The allies have reached seat-sharing agreement for all but six of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

The decision on these six seats will now be taken by the top brass of both the parties in Delhi.

Following two days of deliberations over seat-sharing with NCP and other like-minded parties, state Congress chief Ashok Chavan said on Friday, “Our talks for seat-sharing with alliance partners have come to the final stage, which needs to be approved by the party leadership. The other minor issues that are left over sharing of seats will be resolved by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.”

The six Lok Sabha seats are Ahmednagar, Ratnagiri-sindhudurg, Aurangabad, Yavatmal,

Nashik and Nandurbar.

A senior Congress leader said the NCP was keen to contest from Pune and Jalna Lok Sabha seats, which are from the Congress quota but said the NCP has now agreed to withdraw its demand. Though the Congress is yet to ascertain its candidate from Pune constituency, party insiders said a senior Shiv Sena leader, who is likely to defect, is being considered as party candidate from Jalna Lok Sabha constituency.

State BJP president Raosaheb Danve is a four-term member of

Parliament (MP) from this constituency.

Both the Congress and the NCP have also agreed to share three seats with other allies — Hatkanangale in Kolhapur for the Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha, Amravati for the Rajendra Gawai-led Republican Party of India (RPI) and Akola for the Prakash Ambedkar-led Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM). But others are also demanding seats, including the Samajwadi Party (SP), which has asked for one seat in Mumbai.