The future of the Congress’s alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) hangs in the balance over seat-sharing in Maharashtra.
Congress sources, however, said the continuance of the 15-year-old combine would hinge on whether the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance remained intact. “If the BJP and the Sena go their separate ways in these elections, then the NCP may also decide to try its luck on its own,” a source said. The NCP camp confirmed this position.
As the Congress’s central election committee for Maharashtra and Haryana met in the capital on Saturday, a top Congress leader from Maharashtra told The Hindu , “If [NCP chief] Sharad Pawar still had as much power as he once did, our alliance would remain intact, but now much of that power is with his nephew Ajit Pawar [currently Deputy Chief Minister], thanks to the greater financial backing he enjoys — and it is he who is calling the shots.”
If the problem for the Congress committee for Maharashtra revolves around how many seats it will contest and whether its alliance with the NCP remains intact, in Haryana, it is about whether the party can afford to block dynasts and drop its scam-tainted sitting MLAs, given the exodus from the party in recent months.
On Saturday, the Congress deliberated on the selection of candidates for 174 seats in Maharashtra that it had contested in the previous Assembly elections. State Congress chief Manikrao Thakre later said the Congress high command would decide on the issue of seat-sharing with the NCP.
The Congress is now hoping that a meeting between Mr. Pawar and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will resolve the issue.
The Congress’s central election committee meeting in the evening also deliberated on the party’s candidates for Haryana, where it has been in power for a decade. There is talk that Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is planning to contest from two of the 90 Assembly constituencies in the State.
For the Congress, battling a severe anti-incumbency factor in Maharashtra and Haryana, the only ray of hope comes from last week’s by-election results that have demonstrated that the BJP is not invincible and that in a straight contest with the BJP, the Congress can still hold its own.
