Congress, NCP yet to reach seat-sharing pact

As the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) continued to hold parleys over seat-sharing for the 13 October 13 Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today ruled out any differences in the ruling Democratic Front (DF) alliance.

"There are no differences, but it will take some more time for the seat-sharing talks to be completed," Shinde told reporters at his official residence Varsha, where leaders from both the parties were huddled together for the talks on seat-sharing.

"This is for the first time we are holding seat-sharing talks and it will take some time to arrive at the conclusion," the chief minister said.

This is the 10th round meeting in the last one week between the two parties after the Election Commission announced the poll schedule for the state and the two DF partners decided to fight the elections together.

However, leaders of both the parties admitted that there were certain hurdles in the seat-sharing talks. "We hope to overcome them soon," said a senior NCP leader participating in the talks.

"If needed, the matter will be decided by both parties' central leadership," they added.

The 34 seats in Mumbai, where the NCP is staking its claim, are proving to be a road block as the Congress had won five of the total six Lok Sabha seats in the metropolis in the last general elections.

Besides, Shinde, the Congress leaders present at the meeting include state party unit chief Prabha Rau, Govindrao Adik, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Patangrao Kadam and Ranjit Deshmukh while the NCP leaders include party state chief RR Patil and Ajit Pawar. (nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar), Madhukar Pichhad and Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, deputy chief minister in the DF government.