Sonia skirts alliance issue in Maharashtra

“The enthusiasm and vigour with which you worked in the recent Lok Sabha polls gives me confidence that the Congress will emerge victorious in the Maharashtra Assembly elections once again,” Gandhi told party workers,inaugurating the renovated Mumbai Congress headquarters named after her husband late Rajiv Gandhi.

Without naming the coalition partner NCP,she said the Congress-led government in the state was doing good work for the uplift and welfare of the common man,especially backward classes and farmers.

Congress and NCP are sharing power in the state for the last 10 years and had fought elections together in 2004.

Suspense continues over seat-sharing between the two parties in the coming polls with speculation high that Sharad Pawar’s party might settle for less number of seats than around 120 seats it contested last time in the 288-member Assembly.

Pawar had said yesterday that he would like the alliance to continue and not not break over a few seats.