Mumbai: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Thursday called off its 15-year-old alliance with the Congress in Maharashtra. The announcement was made by state NCP chief Sunil Tatkare.
"We have decided to chart our independent path along with some secular-minded parties," state NCP chief Sunil Tatkare told the media.
Meanwhile Ajit Pawar , another prominent NCP leader and deputy chief minister of Maharashtra announced that NCP has decided to withdraw support to the Congress-led government in the state. Ajit Pawar, who is also the leader of NCP legislature party , is scheduled to meetMaharashtra Governor friday to hand over letter of withdrawal of support to government.
The snapping of ties among partners in two old and formidable alliances in a single day has suddenly added an interesting twist in the poll story of Maharashtra
After days of hectic political parleys and high level drama in the poll bound state of Maharashtra , NCP dropped the bombshell minutes after the announcement of severence of ties between BJP and Shiv Sena. Ajit Pawar blamed Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan for the split saying that NCP was never neglected by earlier Congress CMs.
Addressing the media in Mumbai, another senior NCP leader and former union minister Paful Patel said that NCP always stood for secular government both at centre and in the state and went with Congress with this ideology despite the split in 1999 . Patel said that the formation of secular government in Maharashtra could not have been possible if NCP and Congress had not joined hands.
He also said that all these years of staying together, the congress always got the post of chief minister in Maharashtra but this time NCP has performed better than the Congress in Lok Sabha elections and their presence is stronger in state. Now NCP would try looking for new partners to fight polls. The congress , aware of this possiblity had already finalised its candidates' list.
Praful Patel expressed regret over the Congress' failure to finalize a seat sharing arrangement with the NCP and other secular parties even two days before the deadline for nominations Sep 27.
"We kept hearing from the media and unofficial channels about the number of seats the Congress was willing to offer us," he said.
"Officially, there was only one occasion when they offered us 124 seats, which we rejected as we demanded 144 seats."
The former central minister flayed the Congress and pointed out that Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan left Mumbai to visit his hometown Karad at a critical juncture and remained incommunicado.
"On Wednesday night the Congress unilaterally announced its first list of 118 candidates," Patel said.
"Some of the seats for which it put up candidates had been under discussion with us."
On Saturday, the NCP served a 24-hour ultimatum to the Congress to finalize the number of seats each party will contest but there was no response.
It waited another five days before finally parting ways Thursday.
Both Patel and Tatkare expressed the hope that "a secular government" would be voted back to power in Maharashtra despite the changed circumstances.
With this, both the Congress and the NCP will now contest all the 288 assembly seats separately Oct 15.
The two parties have shared power for 15 years in Maharashtra (1999-2014) and for 10 years in New Delhi (2004-14).
Meanwhile the Congress put the blame back on the NCP .Party general secretary Mohan Prakash said we tried our best to save the alliance but it seems NCP's decision was pre-scripted.
