Don't keep us waiting: Pawar

BMC poll alliance seat sharing likely to be cleared today

PTI | January 9, 2012



With no seat adjustment with Congress yet for next month's municipal polls in the city, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday asked the senior coalition partner to speed up the seat-sharing talks.

"In the last BMC polls also, there were seat-sharing talks till last moment. Congress is senior partner but they should not keep us waiting till the last moment," the NCP leader said, addressing a meeting of party functionaries in south Mumbai.

The two parties had contested the elections separately as the talks fizzled out in the end.

Pawar asked party men to "give time to Congress till tomorrow" for finalisation of seat-sharing.

"Be flexible to accommodate them if they ask for more time but don't wait till the last day," he said.

Talks between the two parties over the past few days to evolve a workable formula for pre-poll alliance have been inconclusive.

Senior Congress leader and former union minister Gurudas Kamat has shot off a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi opposing an alliance with the NCP.

According to him, Congress should have called off alliance talks when deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar declared that NCP would not go for any tie-up with Congress in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, where that party has a strong base.

Kamat questioned the need for alliance with NCP in Mumbai given that the party does not have much of a presence.

Congress has said that it would contest 170 seats and leave 34 for the NCP. The latter, however, wants 65 seats.

Congress won 71 seats in 2007 election and finished second in 99 wards. NCP had won 14 seats and finishing second in 17 wards.

NCP leaders say that in 2007, Congress agreed to cede 65 seats before the talks broke down, so this time, NCP should get at least 65 seats.

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