Cong may not be ready to give more than 100 seats to NCP

NEW DELHI: Congress, which had outperformed NCP in Maharashtra during the recent Lok Sabha polls, is piling pressure on Sharad Pawar���s party to contest lesser number of seats than it had done in the 2004 state elections in a bid to reflect ���changed ground realities���.

Even as the party came down on CWC member Satyavrat Chaturvedi for suggesting that NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who is also the agriculture minister, had misled the country on the availability of sugar, media reports about a purported letter from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to Mr Pawar, asking him to take measures to curb sugar prices, surfaced on Thursday.

Though both Congress and NCP denied that such a letter had been written or received, the suggestion that the responsibility of controlling sugar prices lay primarily with Mr Pawar is bound to irritate NCP, coming as it did just a day after Mr Chaturvedi���s comments.

A senior NCP leader told ET that Congress had been giving the impression, through the media, that it would not like to offer the party anything more than a 100 seats in the 288-member assembly, something that is patently unacceptable to the party. Formal seat-sharing negotiations are yet to begin between the two sides, with Congress yet to take the final call on whether or not to proceed with the alliance.

In the 2004 elections, when the two parties had fought together and won the election, NCP had contested 122 seats and the Congress 168. However, with NCP losing ground in its strongholds of western Maharashtra and Vidharbha in the 2009 general elections, Congress has been demanding a greater share of the seats, in keeping with what leaders have described as ���changed ground realities���.

Congress held marathon meetings on Wednesday night and Thursday to discuss its Maharashtra strategy. Thursday���s meeting at Ms Gandhi���s 10 Janpath residence, which lasted from 9 am to 5 pm, was attended by chief minister Ashok Chavan, state unit chief Manikrao Thackeray and AICC observers K Rehman Khan, Madhusudhan Mistry and Mohan Prakash. Wednesday night���s meeting was held at state in-charge A K Antony���s residence.

A Maharashtra leader said the Congress leadership had discussed the party���s ���winnability��� on each of the 288 seats on Thursday, in an indication that the party was yet to firm up its mind about renewing its alliance with NCP.

The sugar situation, in addition to the drought, has both Congress and NCP worried as it gives ammunition to the Opposition on the price rise front but also affects sugarcane farmers.