Congress, NCP seat sharing talks fail

Thane, Jan 7 (UNI) The Congress and NCP, the alliance partners in the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra, have decided to contest the ensuing February one civic polls in Thane on their own after talks failed on seat-sharing.

Sources in the Congress headquarters here told UNI that NCP was asking for too many seats and went back on their word on seat sharing.

The talks lasted till early 0330 hrs this morning with the deadlock continuing till the afternoon.

As the last ditch efforts failed, the local leaders of the Congress referred the matter to the High Command who in turn communicated to Thane leaders to take a decision as they deemed fit.

Meanwhile, a number of local Congress workers aired their views that they wanted to go it alone in the elections as they feared that NCP might walk away with the lion's share, which may ultimately spoil their chances.

The NCP, which had initially agreed for 68 seats leaving 48 for the Congress, later demanded as many as 79 seats which irked the Congress leaders who were not ready to yield the seats.

The talks between the local leaders continued for more than three days and finally the alliance fell flat much to the satisfaction of the Sena and BJP.

The voters in Thane now have a varied choice to select their 116 representatives between Shiv Sena, BJP, Congress, NCP, Maharashtra Navanirman Sena and also the Shiv Rajya party.

The filing of the nominations will start tomorrow and will go on till January 15. The selection of candidates by the Shiv Sena and BJP will start from tomorrow.

UNI