Factionalism rocks Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, March 19

The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra is still to decide on the seats they will contest in next month’s Lok Sabha elections as various faction leaders of the two outfits bargain hard with their respective party leaderships.

Though the Congress and the NCP have broadly agreed to contest 25 and 23 seats respectively, both outfits have to allot several seats from their “quotas” to various smaller parties. Local leaders of both the outfits are loath to give up their seats to several smaller parties. Both the Congress and the NCP are also bargaining hard to exchange several seats among themselves.

”Intra-party rivalry is preventing the Congress from finalising all the seats,” admits a party leader from Mumbai. Old rivalries between the Congress and NCP are also surfacing ahead of the Lok Sabha
elections.

Leader of the Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil of the Congress and NCP chief Sharad Pawar have had heated exchanges after the former’s son Sujay defected to the BJP. The Ahmednagar seat, eyed by Sujay, falls under the NCP’s quota and the Maratha strongman simply refused to yield it to the young Congress leader.

Vikhe-Patil even went on to say that he would not campaign for any candidate put up by the NCP against his son. Late Tuesday, Vikhe-Patil refuted media reports that he had resigned as Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly.

Sources say both the Congress and the NCP are still deadlocked over four to five seats.

State-level leaders of the two parties have now left it Congress president Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar to break the deadlock.