File photo of NCP leader Praful Patel
It's battles of allies as Maharashtra Assembly elections near. Shiv Sena and BJP have already been squabbling over seat sharing for next month's assembly election, and now the Congress and NCP combine - which has ruled the state together since 1999 - has also followed suit.
The Nationalist Congress Party, led by Sharad Pawar, has given Congress time till later today to agree on the seat-sharing formula. "The situation is delicate. They should make a decision soon," NCP leader Praful Patel said.
Party sources even said that the NCP wants the alliance to continue but is prepared for divorce.
In the last Assembly elections, Congress had contested 174 seats while the NCP had fought in 114 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
This time, the NCP is pitching for as many as 144 seats contending that the two parties should share 50:50 share in the wake of the results in the Lok Sabha polls in which the Congress could secure only two seats while NCP had won four out of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
But the Congress is opposed to that and yesterday deliberated on selection of candidates for 174 seats in Maharashtra, which it had contested in the last assembly polls.
"Not officially, but we are informed that Congress is proposing 124 seats to NCP. We don't accept this proposal. We contested 124 seats in 2004 Vidhan Sabha but in 2009, lesser seats were allotted due to the result of Lok Sabha. In this pattern, our demand to have more than 124 seats is rational," he added.
The development came as the process of filing nominations for the October 15 election to the state Assembly began on Saturday with authorities issuing the poll notification.
Maharashtra's over 8.28 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the single-phase election for its 13th assembly.
September 27 is the deadline for filing nomination. After scrutiny of papers, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 1. Counting of votes will take place on October 19. The existing assembly's term expires on November 8.