Mumbai: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Tuesday has denied that the party is contesting assembly elections in Bihar in an alliance with Shiv Sena. Senior party leader Praful Patel reiterated that the party will go solo as the Congress was not serious for an alliance.
Free Press Journal broke NCP’s decision to contest around 100 odd seats independently in Bihar elections following its talks with the Congress party for a broader alliance to take on the BJP-JD (U) combine failed.
‘’NCP has decided to independently fight assembly elections in Bihar. NCP had taken a stand of joining hands with Congress-RJD and also held talks with them. NCP was not at all adamant on claiming more seats. However, Congress seems to be reluctant to fight polls together and, therefore, NCP chose to go solo,’’ said Patel.
Patel slammed Congress party for its dual policy. ‘’On one hand, Congress claims all like-minded parties should come together against the BJP-JD (U) alliance but on the other hand it does not want to give due importance to other parties. This is quite unfortunate,’’ he noted.
Patel’s announcement comes on a day when Shiv Sena also reiterated that it will fight about 50 seats in Bihar. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said he and other party leaders will soon visit Bihar to assess the situation and hold talks with some parties for an alliance. Sena plans to reach out to the voters on Hindutva plank.
Stand taken by NCP and Shiv Sena is significant as both are currently sharing power in Maharashtra.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
