MUMBAI/PUNE: The seat-sharing talks between the two Democratic Front alliance partners in the western Maharashtra state formally commenced on Tuesday with top brass of Congress party and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) meeting in Mumbai, but in the subsequent round of talks they expect to come out with a concrete decision on seats. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha constituencies which include six in Mumbai.
While the Congress has presented the formula of 27 seats for themselves and 21 for the NCP, the Sharad Pawar-led party is demanding a 50:50 ratio as far as the seats are concerned.
Top leaders from the Congress side who attended the meeting included Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Manikrao Thakre, party’s campaign committee chairman Gurudas Kamat, Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh.
The NCP was represented by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and former Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil, Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, Water Resources Minister Ajit Pawar and Mumbai unit president Sachin Ahir attended the meeting.
Chief Minister Ashok Chavan could not attend the meeting, as he had to rush to Gadchiroli, where 15 policemen were killed on Sunday in a Maoist attack.
There would be several other rounds of discussions between the leaders of the two parties before that arrive at a consensus. On Nov. 10 last, Thakre and the then NCP unit chief Arun Gujarathi met with their respective teams and formally decided to contest the polls together.
Meanwhile, rattled by the brutal killing of 15 policemen by Maoists in Gadchiroli district, the Maharashtra government announced that the security forces would intensify anti-Maoist operations. “The massacre of policemen is extremely tragic,” Chavan said in Gadchiroli on Tuesday.
