Mumbai: With just two months left for the Lok Sabha elections, Congress met its ally Nationalist Congress Party on Monday and decided on the number of seats to contest from Maharashtra.
The Congress will contest on 26 seats while the NCP will field its candidates for 22 seats in Maharashtra.
The seat share was finalised by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Congress leader Ahmed Patel and NCP leaders Praful Patel and Ajit Pawar.
The NCP is the oldest ally of the Congress and the two parties have been fighting Parliament elections since 2004. They have been sharing power in Maharashtra since 1999, soon after Pawar parted ways on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin.
The bone of contention is Kolhapur seat which was alloted to NCP but was won by an NCP rebel who has become an associate member of the Congress.
There is a talk of swapping of some seats in Marathwada and north Maharashtra between the two parties.
Before the talks on Monday, senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde sparked a controversy saying that Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar wanted the NCP to ally with the BJP, but Munde opposed the move. Munde made these comments while addressing an event in Beed district in Maharashtra.
Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to start from mid-April and would be spread over at least five phases till early May.
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