By IANS,
Ahmedabad : The Congress Tuesday said it was still open to offering the Surat Lok Sabha seat in south Gujarat to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) though their alliance has broken up in the state.
“The Congress is decided on fielding its candidates from 25 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat while still leaving the option for the Surat seat for the NCP to decide,” Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel told reporters here.
“However, if the NCP is not interested in any seat-sharing arrangement for Surat, the party would go ahead within two days and choose its candidate,” he added.
He said there had been no talks on giving the Ahmedabad (West) and Rajkot seats to the NCP and thus there was no question of sharing the two constituencies with it.
Asked about the prospects of the party candidate against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, Patel said: “Suresh Patel is the most ideal candidate to take on L.K. Advani considering his huge popularity in the Gandhinagar constituency.”