In a reminder of its approach towards the Samajwadi Party in their alliance talks ahead of the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is keeping the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on tenterhooks about the fate of their alliance in Maharashtra barely a few weeks before the Assembly elections.

While Congress president Sonia Gandhi was learnt to have made up her mind to continue the alliance in Maharashtra, the party has chosen to keep its ally, the NCP, guessing and confused. Contacted by The Indian Express on Monday, Union minister and senior NCP leader Praful Patel said his party was yet to hear anything from the Congress on the issue of alliance.

The Congress party’s prevarications already threaten to upset the ruling combine’s electoral equations, with their ally Republican Party of India (RPI), which is part of the Ashok Chavan government, on Monday joining 15 other parties to float the Republican Left Democratic Front to provide an alternative to the Congress-NCP alliance and Shiv Sena-BJP combine.

“An early resolution of this issue (of alliance) is a must. Alliance should be finalised as early as possible. Delay in the alliance is giving rise to all secular parties converging towards Third Front,” said Patel.

Both the Congress and NCP sources here admitted that the so-called Third Front could prove to be a “spoilsport” on many seats in closely contested Assembly elections, even though the individual parties in this front might not have any large support base. NCP sources attributed the loss of RPI to prevarications by the Congress. “How could we talk to the RPI earlier when our own alliance with the Congress is not final?” said an NCP leader.

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