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Pradip Kumar Maitra
NAGPUR, MAY 28: If Chief Minister Narayan Rane's political acumen is anything to go by then the vertical split in the State Congress and the influx into Baramati strongman Sharad Pawar's fledging Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has pitted the saffron combine directly against the latter in the ensuing hustings.
Rane who was here to hit the poll trail in Vidarbha region on Friday reasoned that since Pawar was a force to reckon with in his home turf he would definitely eat into and shear away a major chunk of the Congress vote banks.
The confident chief minister all but wrote the political obituary of Congress by saying that ``the century-old party is finished in the State in the wake of recent split and now the real fight will be between the Sena-BJP alliance and the NCP, led by Sharad Pwar in Maharashtra''.
Rane asserted that the Sena-BJP would easily get an advantage due to the split and the combine would be able to get at least 160 seats in the house of 284 in the coming State elections.
He ruledout that there would be any tacit understanding or friendly contest with the Pawar Congress in Maharashtra in the coming elections. ``Our immediate rival in the elections would be the Congress led by Pawar and not the Sonia Congress and hence question does not arise,'' he pointed out.
The Chief Minister hinted that there would be a drastic change while nominating Shiv Sena candidates in both the State and Lok Sabha elections to be held in September next. ``We can also mutually change some seats with the consent of our ally, BJP in coming Lok Sabha elections,'' he further said.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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