After the break-up of BJP-Shiv Sena over seat sharing, the Nationalist Congress party, which is in power with the Congres party for last 15 years, decided to part ways on Thursday. With Congress announcing its first list of candidates amid the continuing stalemate over seat sharing for the Maharashtra Assembly polls on Wednesday night, the NCP leadership had gone into a huddle to decide its future course of action.
Announcing its breakup with the Congress, NCP president Sunil Tatkare said, "We will fight on our own, and we will go with secular and like-minded parties."
Speaking to the media, senior NCP leader Praful Patel said, "In the year 1999, we were the new party and it was impossible for a single party to form the government, therefore, we came together with Congress. We gave support to Congress for the betterment of people of the nation. In 2004, the number of NCP MLAs was more than that of Congress but still we were modest and gave support to them."
Also read: Maharashtra assembly polls: Suspense ends; Shiv Sena, BJP break 25-year-old alliance
"We supported the Congress throughout and allowed them to have their chief minister. A few days back, we had requested Congress to expedite discussion on seat sharing and had put forth our views, but they were adamant and only 124 seats were offered to us, which we were not ready to accept," Patel added.
Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said, "Being a leader in the legislative council, I will submit the new decision to the Maharashtra governor."
Stating that the NCP's decision to break the alliance was pre-scripted and we tried our best to save the alliance, Congress leader Mohan Prakash added, "Our efforts are still to fight election by bringing secular forces together to take forward the pride of Maharashtra. but it seems NCP's decision was pre-scripted"
Mentioning that they were forced to take the decision, Patel added, "We will be contesting the election independently. It is unfortunate that we have to end this relation after being together for such a long time."
Soon after the announcement by NCP, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said, "The alliance with NCP has come to an end today. Since the last few days we were trying to resolve the dispute. But NCP was firm in its demand of 144 seats and were not ready to discuss the issue."
He further added that the decision taken by NCP seems to have been taken for personal benefit as they announced their decision to break the alliance soon after Sena-BJP parted ways.
MPCC president Manikrao Thackeray said that Congress had contested five elections with NCP since the alliance and added, "Even this time we tried to keep the alliance intact, but NCP was adamant about its demand to contest 144 seats."
A few days ago, NCP leader Praful Patel had given the Congress a final 'ultimatum' of 24-hours to respond on the seat sharing.
However, MPCC president Manikrao Thakre had said, "If we are not able to keep the alliance intact, Congress should not be blamed." Ridiculing NCP's demand of 144 assembly seats, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had on August 23, made it clear that the Congress was firm on its stand of giving them 124 seats, which was 10 more than their 2009 arrangement.
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