The talks between the Congress State unit and the Communist Party of India (CPI) held here on Saturday on seat-sharing for the forthcoming elections remained inconclusive.
The CPI asked the Congress to spare seven Assembly seats and the Aska Lok Sabha seat as part of seat adjustments Sources said the CPI demanded Chhatrapur, Boudh, Brajarajnagar, Ersama-Balikuda, Sundargarh, Chitrakonda and Junagarh Assembly seats and the Aska Lok Sabha seat.
Later, CPI State secretary Dibakar Nayak said, “It has been tentatively decided that our party would get the Aska LS seat as part of seat-sharing. But the seat-sharing for the Assembly seats has not yet been finalised.”
Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra said, “We had open discussion with our CPI friends today. Whatever discussed here would be put before the respective competent forums of the two parties. Then, the seat sharing would be finalised.”
Sources said a State CPI executive meeting would be held on Sunday and the Pradesh Congress Election Committee is scheduled to meet on March 6 and 7. The seat-sharing between the two parties is expected to be finalised after that.
PCC president Niranjan Patnaik, Jagannath Patnaik and Ananta Prasad on behalf of the Congress and Ashish Kanungo, Ramakrishna Panda, Abhay Sahu and Prashant Mishra of the CPI were present.