Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said on Tuesday that seat sharing talks with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are on at an "appropriate level", but refused to disclose any timeframe set to arrive at a final formula.
Addressing a press conference, Chavan said that talks are on at "the appropriate level". Replying to questions, he denied that the Congress-NCP tie-up depended upon the outcome of the Shiv Sena-BJP seat sharing deadlock. "We have nothing to do with what is going on in the opposition," he said.
The process of selection of candidates has begun in the Congress, he said, adding that candidate selection and scrutiny has been done in 92 constituencies which the Congress contested and lost. Similarly, aspirants were interviewed in constituencies where the Congress has sitting MLAs. Besides this, the party discussed the political situation in 114 seats which the NCP contested.
He said that the Congress plank for campaign would be developmental work done by it during 15 years and not Modi, since he is not the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP in Maharashtra. In response to a question whether the Congress is fighting its ally NCP in Maharashtra's forthcoming assembly elections or the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, Chavan said that alliances on both sides are still at the "discussion stage".
"We will get to know soon," he said. Maharashtra state Congress president Manikrao Thakre who was present at the press conference said that the Congress has had an alliance with NCP for 15 years. "If the alliance does not materialise now, our fight will be with everybody else," Thakre said.
Sources said that Congress-NCP seat talks are deadlocked, since the NCP is firm on getting more number of seats to contest, while the Congress is not ready to give more than ten extra seats in addition to what the NCP had contested last time.
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