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Justifying his demand for equal seat sharing with the Congress, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said past mistakes will not be repeated if the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) emerges as the single-largest party, as it did in the 2004 Assembly polls.
To a question on whether he would be the chief ministerial candidate, he told reporters that elected MLAs of the party would decide on their leader.
In 2004, NCP emerged as the single-largest party with 71 seats but ceded the chief ministerial post to ally Congress in return for two additional cabinet and three ministers of state.
Pawar said if NCP gets to form the government it would scrap toll levy and decision making would be faster.
Referring to Congress MLA Prashant Thakur quitting the party to join BJP over the issue of Kharghar toll plaza, Pawar regretted that a young political activist like Prashant quit over this issue.
"Forty per cent of the state population pass through the Khargar toll to come to Mumbai. I was in favour of the scrapping of the toll but Cidco and MMRDA would need to pay Rs 1,200 cr to the government.... It was not a big deal but chief minister did not agree," he said. Pawar said the NCP demand for 144 seats was justified.
"It is a practical demand. Earlier, formulas were worked out on the basis of previous election results. So according to the latest Lok Sabha poll result we deserve equal sharing. There is no headway in Congress-NCP talks so far," he said.
