PUNE, 8 October 2007 — With an eye on midterm polls to the Indian Parliament, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has conveyed to the Congress party that it would contest the Pune Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) constituency seat.

For the first time NCP leaders during a general body meeting of the party held in Mumbai on Wednesday had insisted that the NCP should stake claim to the Pune seat in view of the party doing well in routing the Congress in Pune and the twin towns of Pimpri-Chinchwad this year and the party being in power in both the civic bodies. NCP leaders have been vocal in their demand and said that if the Congress wants to strike a deal on seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls then it would have to give up claims on some of the traditional Congress bastions including Pune.

The local guardian minister Ajit Pawar has been reiterating time and again that the next target of the NCP is to win the Lok Sabha seat.

President of the state NCP Arun Gujrathi was more vocal and said that it is an accepted fact and one has to admit that the NCP has emerged stronger in local body polls in Maharashtra. “Though there are no formal talks on with the Congress on seat-sharing now, there is no getting around that we deserve more seats,” he said and added that NCP leader and Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel will carve out the seat-sharing policy for the party.

Gujrathi further said that the party has not put forward any demand but would have to comply with the demand of the party workers who are confident enough of winning the Pune seat. The state unit of the NCP will put forth the demand of workers and poll statistics before the party high command after which a final decision will be taken by NCP national President Sharad Pawar.

A senior NCP leader told Arab News that the Congress should learn from the drubbing it got at the civic bodies polls recently and forget of Pune being their fiefdom. The NCP has emerged as more powerful than the Congress in the state, and that it’s time the Congress stopped dictating terms to the NCP, the leader said.

Congress leaders asked to comment on the stand of the NCP on the Pune seat said that they were livid with the NCP’s stance. Pune City Congress chief Abhay Chajed said: “Congress is a national party and even in Pune we are No. 1. If NCP wants to forge an alliance with the Congress, a seat-sharing formula is not finalized on local levels. If performance in the civic polls is the criterion for claiming the prestigious Pune Lok Sabha seat, then Congress was far ahead of the NCP,” he said.

Meanwhile, detractors of Congress leader and city member of Parliament Suresh Kalmadi, have blamed Kalmadi for doing maximum damage to the party and are targeting the MP. “The performance of the party in civic polls was pathetic. Though the party lost heavily, no heads have rolled till date. Time has come for the party to replace the present leadership with a new face,” they said.

After Pune, the next target for NCP is Amravati Lok Sabha seat. In the last election, out of 21 seats, NCP won nine seats, while the Congress annexed 13 seats after contesting 27 seats. The NCP’s tally from the state went up to 10 after it won the Erandol seat in the recent bypolls.