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Sonia meets Deshmukh, Shinde on Maharashtra assembly polls

Elections in the state are scheduled by October and will be the first test for the Congress after their victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

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Amid demands for 'going it alone' in Maharashtra, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today began consultations over the coming Assembly elections by meeting Union ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushilkumar Shinde.

Gandhi met Deshmukh, a known advocate of the Congress going solo, and Shinde separately. Both the leaders are former chief ministers of Maharashtra.

Elections in the state are scheduled by October and will be the first test for the Congress after their victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

The party has been in power in the state for the last ten years along with its ally NCP, which was formed by Sharad Pawar over a decade back after parting ways with Congress on the issue of Gandhi's foreign origin.

Deshmukh, a known detractor of Pawar, has been advocating the 'going it alone' line after the Lok Sabha polls in which the Congress won 17 seats as against 8 by the NCP out of the 48 seats in the state. 

Earlier this week, Deshmukh said in Mumbai, "party workers are insisting to fight the state polls on their own and I am expressing their emotions."

He said party workers should be given freedom to express their views before the Congress Working Committee, which is likely to meet soon.

However, sources in the AICC said the top leadership of the party is in favour of sticking to its decade-long alliance with the NCP. Party sources said Congress President is not in favour of "deserting any ally."

Asked about the demand from a section of the Maharashtra Congress leaders about severing ties with NCP and going it alone on the lines of Uttar Pradesh, a senior Congress leader said, "the situation in two states is different."

"We had no alliance in UP even before the elections while in Maharashtra, we are having a ten-year-old alliance. The Congress president is not in favour of leaving any ally unless the ally leaves the Congress," he said.

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