NCP cancels manifesto release

Mumbai: The lack of coordination among the Opposition parties has come to the fore, with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) having to cancel its plans to release its manifesto for the forthcoming Assembly elections at the eleventh hour. The decision was taken due to objections raised by its alliance partner, the Congress.

“Our manifesto was ready. But due to the insistence of other Opposition parties, we decided not to release it today. The joint manifesto of the Opposition parties will soon be released,” said NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik. While the NCP had announced at a press meet Monday that it would release its manifesto, Mr Malik told the media that the release had been cancelled.

“We had prepared our vision document by taking into account the results of the study and the people’s feedback. But the Opposition parties are saying that there should a combined manifesto, as it is a front of several parties. Hence, a joint manifesto should be released soon,” Mr Malik said.

However, the last-minute cancellation was viewed as a lack of coordination by political observers.

One observer said, “If they wanted to release the manifesto jointly, the decision should have been taken well in advance. One party announcing its decision to release its own manifesto, and the other party later asking it to cancel the release shows an absence of proper dialogue between them. The Opposition parties need to get their act together to face the might of the BJP and Shiv Sena but there is very little time left.”

While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena are yet to finalise a seat-sharing deal, Opposition parties — Congress and NCP — sealed the pact by deciding to contest on 125 seats each in Maharashtra. The remaining seats will be left for the allies.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar had tweeted last week, “The NCP and the Congress will contest on 125 seats each in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly election. Other allies will get the remaining 38 seats.” “Though the seat-sharing pact has been finalised, parties are yet to decide on other important factors, including who will contest from which seat and names of the candidates to be fielded,” Mr Pawar had said.