NCP blames Congress' 'big brother' attitude for split

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Tariq Anwar on Friday blamed his party's split with the Congress Party on the latter's adamancy on playing the 'big brother' in the alliance.

"Our alliance broke because the Congress was adamant on its stand and did not change its attitude towards the issue. So, when the Congress decided not to give us more seats and play the big brother, we decided that it was better to split," Anwar told ANI.

"Our party members wanted NCP to fight alone as looking at the Lok Sabha results this was a better thing to do but we did not want to end our 15 year old alliance with them. Eventually we did not have any choice besides that. Being a political party, now we have to contest the elections alone and we are ready for that," he added.

On Thursday, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) broke its alliance with the Congress ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, blaming their erstwhile allies of not being on the same page as far as the allocation of seats in the state was concerned.

The NCP's announcement came minutes after the BJP ended its 25-year alliance with the Shiv Sena.

Maharashtra will now go to polls on October 15 with all the major four parties contesting alone in the elections. There are 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra.