With just two days left for counting of votes polled for the 12th Legislative Assembly in Maharashtra, the NCP is banking on rebels in the fray to increase its tally while Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Manikrao Thakre is confident that the Congress-NCP alliance would win a majority and that no outside support would be required to form a government.

The NCP, which contested 113 seats out of the 288, is banking on its rebels to increase its tally. “In 2004, we had contested 122 seats and had emerged as the single-largest party with 71 seats. Now, we are expecting to win 75 seats despite contesting fewer seats than the last polls as most of the rebels would join us,” a senior NCP leader said, pointing out that the party had enlisted 24 NCP rebels. Of these, 14 are fighting against official Congress nominees.

He said the NCP was also planning to tap rebels from the Opposition, mainly BJP’s Vinay Natu (who is contesting against Shiv Sena’s Ramdas Kadam in Guhagar) and Sena’s Pradeep Jaiswal (contesting against Sena’s Ratanlal Jain from Aurangabad Central).

Meanwhile, Thakre said, “We are expecting 17 to 20 rebels to get elected, definitely more than 15, but we don’t foresee any need to seek their support as the Congress-NCP alliance would get a clear majority.”

Thakre, who is in Delhi to meet senior Congress leaders in the run-up to the counting of votes, said the high command would take a decision on who would be the next chief minister. He said there were many aspirants and some of them were playing the card of regional balance, but Delhi would take a decision, in an obvious reference to Konkan strongman Narayan Rane whose supporters have said most past chief ministers have been from western Maharashtra and Marathwada and it was time for other parts of the state to be given a chance.

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