Mumbai civic polls: Congress leader against any tie-up with NCP

A senior Congress leader today came out against any tie-up with the NCP in the Mumbai civic polls in a tit-for-tat action for the refusal of Sharad Pawar's party to share seats in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Party sources said that former Union Minister Gurudas Kamat has shot off a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi in this regard.

Kamat is a former Mumbai Congress chief and a Lok Sabha member from the megapolis.

His letter has come at a time when consensus on a seat-sharing formula for next month's polls continues to elude Congress and NCP. The leaders of both parties today met in Mumbai at 'Varsha', the official residence of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, to work out a formula.

As per the results of the 2007 elections, Congress wants to contest 170 seats and leave 34 for the NCP. However, with the NCP remaining adamant on 65 seats, Congress has agreed to give 10 more seats from its quota where it had finished second.

NCP had never got more than 14 seats in the Mumbai civic polls, Kamat is understood to have pointed out.

Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar has ruled out any alliance with Congress in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, the two civic bodies which have dominance of the NCP.