Congress to use old seat formula with NCP

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has decided to push for the old formula during its seat-sharing negotiations with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for the upcoming general elections.

The state Congress unit has also delegated the power to alter such a seat-sharing formula to its Delhi-based high command. Further, the talk over the number of seats to be shared between the two parties is likely to be held in Delhi.

The Maharashtra Cong-ress was asked by the party high command to start talks of an alliance with the NCP and other smaller parties in the state. The major discussion will take place between the Congress and NCP. The contentious issue in such talks is always the number of seats each party will contest.

In 2014, Congress contested 26 seats while NCP contested 21 seats and one was contested with a smaller party. So, the seat-sharing formula between the Congress and NCP was 27:21. MPCC is keen to continue with the same formula, and the state leadership is likely to inform Congress president Rahul Gandhi about the same by this weekend.

However, this time, NCP is aggressive about contesting equal number of seats as the Congress in both the Lok Sabha (LS) and Assembly elections. NCP is likely to demand 24 seats in the LS. In 2014, Congress won only 2 of the 26 LS seats it contested in the state while the NCP won 4 of the 21 it contested. With this, NCP is posturing that it won more seats than the Congress and is trying to leverage the same in seat-sharing.

Looking at the Congress leadership’s indication of building a nationwide alliance against the BJP, MPCC leaders, too, are playing it safe. They have given all rights, as always, to the Congress high command to decide on the number of seats to be contested by all parties. Sources said that Mr Gandhi would discuss the matter in a day or two with concerned colleagues.