Hardening its position in the seat-sharing negotiations with the NCP, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithiviraj Chavan made it clear on Wednesday that the Congress was prepared to contest all the 288 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, in the event of failure of its ongoing talks with its ruling alliance partner.
Talking to mediapersons at Aurangabad, Chavan said: “We are sincerely trying to arrive at a seat-sharing pact with the NCP, to prevent the communal parties (Sena-BJP alliance) from coming to power in the State. Our contention is that we should sincerely come together and contest the polls as an alliance. But, we do not want a situation that after finalising the alliance, there will be rebels in the fray from either side contesting the polls”.
“I am confident that our senior leaders who are holding talks with the NCP leaders later on Wednesday will finalise the number of seats to be contested by each of the two parties will contest in the polls. However, in the event of failure of talks between the two parties, the Congress is prepared to go it alone in the polls. So does the NCP which has also made similar arrangements to contest the polls on its own strength,” the chief minister said.
Chavan was, however, optimistic that the Congress would finalise its seat-sharing deal for the Assembly polls with the NCP in the next “three to four” days.
The chief minister’s statement about the Congress’ readiness to go it alone in the State Assembly came a day after Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Manikrao Thakre sent out an indirect message to the NCP that it was open to contesting all the 288 seats in the state.
Talking to media persons after the meeting of the party’s screening committee held in New Delhi on Tuesday to finalise the party candidates for the State Assembly polls, Thakre had said that the Congress had “examined” the current political situation in all 288 Assembly seats in the State.
“At today’s meeting, we screened candidates for the 174 seats (coming under the Congress’ quota). In addition, we assessed information gathered from our party workers in 114 other constituencies (the seats that are currently under the NCP’s quota). We will have to talk to the NCP about the 114 seats as well,” Thakre had said.
On the NCP’s demand for 144 out of total 288 seats, Thakre had said: “The NCP’s demand is both surprising and unrealistic. On this issue, our state and central party leaders are talking with the NCP. A final decision on this will be taken by the Central Congress leadership”.
While the Congress had contested 170 seats add won 82 seats in the 2009 polls, the NCP had contested 113 seats and bagged 62 seats.
However, after having performed better than its senior partner in the recent lok Sabha polls which saw the Sharad Pawar-led win four seats against two seats won by the Congress, the NCP has demanded an equal share ( 144 seats) in the total 288 Assembly seats.
On its part, the Congress is playing hard ball and may at best concede 10 additional seats to the NCP than 113 seats the latter had contested in the 2009 polls.
The Congress plans to come out with its first list of candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly polls by September 20, the day on which nominations for the polls will begin.