The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are set to reach an understanding on seat-sharing in Maharashtra for Assembly election shortly — as early as on Friday. As against the NCP’s demand for 120 seats in the 288-member Assembly, the Congress is learnt to have agreed to 110 and is likely to concede a few more after a meeting of senior party leaders on Friday. AICC in charge of Maharashtra A K Antony and Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, met late on Thursday evening to finalise the party’s stance. They will take a final decision after consulting Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and other state leaders on Friday.

In 2004 Assembly elections, the Congress had contested 166 seats and the NCP 122. As the two parties looked set to clinch their alliance, Congress leaders from Maharashtra maintained that there were many more pertinent issues that were yet to be discussed.

“Antony’s entire focus has been on the number of seats the party should contest. Due to delimitation of constituencies, political dynamics of every constituency has changed. When is the time to discuss constituency-wise distribution of seats? The constituencies of many Independent MLAs who have joined the party have to be accounted for. We must sort out the model of our coalition arrangement. We cannot give all important portfolios to the NCP in the changed political scenario. There are many other issues to be sorted out, but we are still stuck on numbers,” said a senior Congress leader from Maharashtra.

... contd.