By IANS,
New Delhi : The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is ready to concede more seats to its ally Congress in the Maharashtra elections and seat sharing talks between them are going on smoothly, NCP leader Praful Patel said Wednesday.
“The Congress contested a large number of seats last time, they will contest more seats this time. Some seats do not exist after delimitation (of constituencies). We are ready to give certain seats to Congress,” he told reporters here.
Patel’s statement comes a day after the Congress and the NCP’s first round of official talks over seat sharing ended in Mumbai.
Patel said: “There is no problem in arriving at a seat sharing arrangement. We will contest the elections together. We will resolve the seat sharing issue amicably in a day or two.”
The Congress-NCP alliance rules Maharashtra, which goes to polls Oct 13.
In the April-May Lok Sabha elections, the Congress contested 25 of the 48 seats in the state and won 17. The NCP won only eight of the 21 seats it fought.
In the 2004 assembly polls, the Congress contested 157 of the 288 seats and NCP fielded candidates in 127 seats, leaving the rest to their allies. The NCP has 71 seats and the Congress 69 in the state assembly.