Signalling the Congress’s preparedness for an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the next Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday asked party leaders to identify the respective seats to be contested by the two parties. Her instructions came in a meeting attended by senior party leaders at her residence.

Four party leaders — Digvijay Singh, Madhusudan Mistry, K Rahman Khan and Mohan Prakash — who are part of the recently formed high-powered committee on Maharashtra have been instructed to find out “which seats the Congress should contest and which should be left for the NCP”, it was reliably learnt. They have to complete the task by next Sunday.

There was unanimity at the meeting that the Congress should contest more seats this time as delimitation of constituencies had gone in its favour. In 2004 Assembly election, the Congress had contested 166 seats and the NCP the remaining 122 seats.

The highlight of the Monday’s meeting was former home minister Shivraj Patil’s “return to form”, as a Congress leader put it. During deliberations over the party’s strategy in Maharashtra, Patil was aggressive in his stand vis-à-vis the NCP, according to sources present at the meeting. The NCP is now weak in western Maharashtra and there was no reason for the Congress to accede to its (NCP’s) demand for more seats in that region, Patil reportedly asserted.

To his party colleagues, Patil’s return to the so-called backroom at 10, Janpath, and his emphatic intervention during discussions signalled the revival of the former home minister’s clout. After he was forced to resign in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks last November, Patil has been maintaining a low profile.

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