Cong NCP seat-sharing talks fail

Mumbai, Jan 13 (UNI) The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today broke its alliance with the Congress after its seat sharing talks failed for the February one Brihanmumbai Municipal Election.

Mumbai unit President of NCP Sachin Ahir told mediapersons here ''the seat sharing talks have failed due to the Congress' high handedness and egoistic attitude while dealing with friendly parties.'' ''The NCP was extremely keen for an alliance with Congress to keep away communal forces like Sena and BJP. But the Congress was egoistic about its strength in Mumbai,'' he said.

He said the strength of NCP in Mumbai has grown considerably in the last five years and it was wrong on the part of Congress to keep insisting that the seat sharing talks should be based on two election results.

Mumbai NCP executive president Nawab Mallick blamed the anti Gurudas Kamat lobby in the Congress for the failure of the talks and added ''the lobby does not want Kamat to continue as the city unit president.'' Mr Mallick claimed that ''Several city Congress Corporators are keen to contest on NCP tickets.'' Mr Ahir said that ''We agreed for the proposals of contesting 65 seats against the wishes of our party workers but the Congress did not allow us to have our choice of seats.'' Maharashtra NCP spokesman Madan Basna said that seat sharing talks has not materialised in Thane and Nashik also.

Only in Akola the Congress and NCP will fight together.

The Civic polls are going to be held in Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Pune, Nagpur, Pimpri Chinchwad, Amravati, Akola, Sholapur and Ulashnagar.

UNI