The traditional jousting for seats in the strained Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance in Maharashtra has not even reached fever pitch in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but NCP President Sharad Pawar has already announced already that the party, a key UPA ally, will contest against the Congress in states other than Maharashtra.
"The Congress is not forthcoming, so we will contest on our own in Gujarat, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttaranchal, Nagaland, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar and Kerala, where the NCP is in an alliance with the Left Democratic Front," Pawar was quoted as saying.
Reuters
The 48 seats in Maharashtra were split between the Congress and NCP in the 2009 election with 26 for the Congress and 22 for the NCP. NCP leaders have already begun to talk about keeping their 22 seats -- of which the party won eight.
Pawar said on Sunday that the seat-sharing talks are yet to begin and added that an exchange of seats between the two is possible, but the NCP would not be happy sacrificing any seats to the Congress.
The Congress has indicated that talk about seat-sharing should be based on wins in the 2009 LS elections and in the 2009 Assembly elections that followed. The NCP fought only 114 Assembly seats in 2009, in comparison to 124 in the 2004 Assembly elections. By this logic, according to the Congress (which won 17 of the 26 LS seats it contested in 2009), it should contest more seats this summer.
Six members of Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra will retire in March 2014, including two NCP members, YP Trivedi and Janardan Waghmare.
The Congress and the NCP have had a rocky marriage in Maharashtra for years, with each trying to outmaneouvre the other. While NCP ministers have repeatedly targetted Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, the party's Union ministers skipped two Cabinet meetings in 2012 over an alleged lack of coordination committee meetings between the two parties in Maharashtra.
Pawar has himself taken potshots at the Congress leadership every now and then. He recently questioned Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's preparedness for the top job, stating quite candidly that he would not wish to work under the young Gandhi in the Union Cabinet.
Rahul must first prove his leadership, Pawar suggested.
More recently, following the unprecedented success of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, Pawar blogged about the political developments in the national capital, this time suggesting that a weak Central government could be shown the door.
The long-time aspirant to the prime ministerial post, who continues to be wooed by Third Front constituents, called for "serious thinking from not only the Congress but the rest of us too". In a strongly written blog post the morning after results from four states' Assembly elections showed a near-complete decimation of the Congress, the Maratha strongman said about people, "They do not want weak rulers, but they want those who will formulate policies & programs for poor and implement them with firmness."
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