Mumbai:
The seat sharing issue between the Congress-NCP alliance for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls may be resolved today as both parties are scheduled to meet in Mumbai to take a final decision on the matter.
Ahead of this meeting, major discussions have been going on in both the party bastions.
"Differences have been narrowed down, there should be no difficulty in forging a strong alliance," Majeed Memon of the NCP told ANI here.
An NCP core committee meeting was held in Mumbai on Monday, attended by party chief Sharad Pawar.
A meeting of Congress leaders was also held at Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's residence to discuss the issue.
The NCP had earlier given a one day ultimatum to the Congress to finalise the seat sharing deal.
The stalemate between the Congress and NCP over seat sharing was continuing as the latter is not willing to contest in less than 136 seats. The Congress has reportedly offered only 125 seats to its ally keeping the rest of the seats with itself to contest in the upcoming state assembly polls.
During the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Congress had contested in 174 seats while the NCP had fought in 114 seats.
The polling for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra is scheduled to be held on October 15. The counting of votes will take place on October 19.
After the Congress-NCP meeting today, core committees of both parties will meet again in the afternoon.
BJP offers to contest 130 seats to Shiv Sena's 158
The Bharatiya Janata Party has offered to contest in 130 assembly seats in the upcoming Maharashtra elections to the Shiv Sena's 158, as opposed to the previous offer of contesting 135 seats.
Party in-charge of Maharashtra Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters in New Delhi that it is a very liberal proposal and hoped the Shiv Sena will consider it favourably.
Rudy also said that the BJP has told the Shiv Sena that it is ready to offer those seats which the Shiv Sena has never won.
Maharashtra BJP president Devendra Fadnavis said the party is waiting for a response from the Shiv Sena on its latest proposal.
