Mumbai: The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will start seat sharing talks from Tuesday. The talks are expected to be based on the Lok Sabha and 2014 Assembly results. The meeting will be held at the official residence of Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar.
The Congress and NCP fought 2019 Lok Sabha elections together. Congress won only one and NCP four seats. Based on votes polled in Assembly constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena are leading in 220 Assembly seats. BJP and Shiv Sena are eyeing to win at least 250 out of 288 seats in the state.
State’s senior minister Girish Mahajan has claimed that Congress and NCP could not win more than 50 seats. In 2014, Congress and NCP had contested the Assembly election on their own which resulted in division of their votes. The big challenge before two parties are to keep their flock together. The aggressive poaching of the leaders having elective merit by BJP and Sena is the major cause of concern.
The leaders who did not get the tickets may easily cross over to ruling combine. In 2014, many strong holds of Congress were won over by NCP and vice-versa. This time both parties will claim those seats.The meeting will be attended by NCP State President Jayant Patil, senior leader Ajit Pawar, State Congress president Balasaheb Thorat and his newly-appointed Working President. Jayant Patil welcomed the appointment of Thorat as new Congress President.
