Maharashtra Assembly polls: No dispute with NCP over 150 seats in the upcoming state elections, says Congress
- Details
- Category: Maharashtra Political News
- Last Updated: Thursday, 25 July 2019 11:40
Maharashtra Assembly polls: No dispute with NCP over 150 seats in the upcoming state elections, says Congress
Mumbai: The opposition Congress and NCP in Maharashtra have no dispute on nearly 150 out of the total 288 Assembly seats and a decision will be made to share these for the state poll later this year, a Congress leader said on Wednesday.
Senior leaders of the two parties met here on Tuesday evening to deliberate on the broad framework of seat-sharing for the forthcoming Assembly elections.
The state Congress leader said that "There is no controversy between the two parties on about 150 seats. Since we contested the 2014 elections separately, the 2009 seat-sharing arrangements would be the baseline this time. A final decision will be taken after discussing the performance of both the parties in the 2014 elections and the prevailing situation. Some seats could be exchanged and some could be left for other allies". The leader said "winning" will be the given priority, while it will be decided which party will contest the election on a particular seat.
He also said that Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar, who is head of Vanchit Bahujan Agadhi (VBA), has given a "positive" response to a letter inviting him to interact with the Congress and NCP leaders for the state elections.
The Congress leader said that "He wants us to clear the notion that his faction was the BJP's 'B-team', as alleged by the opposition parties during the Lok Sabha poll campaign at the beginning of this year".
ALSO READ:Best Political Consulting Firm in India
Last week, Ambedkar offered 40 out of the total 288 Assembly seats to the crisis-hit Congress, if he wants to enter into an alliance for the state elections scheduled for September-October.
Claiming that the Congress has become "rudderless", he said the VBA is ready to contest all 288 seats in the state. In the 2014 elections, the BJP came to power by winning 122 seats. Its ally Shiv Sena won 62 seats. The Congress and the NCP bagged 42 and 41 seats, respectively.