Surjeet and Alva: Breaking new ground

New Delhi, Sept. 10: The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are understood to have inched closer to a seat-sharing deal in Maharashtra with a little prodding from Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

According to a broad understanding reached between the two sides, the Congress and its junior partners may field candidates in around 164 seats of the total 288; the remaining 124 would be left to the NCP and its smaller allies.

Sources said today that some room might be left for minor readjustment of this broad share when a formal agreement is reached between the two allies in a day or two. The final deal has been held up by some differences on sharing the 34 seats in Mumbai and 60 in the Vidarbha region.

Margaret Alva, Congress in-charge of Maharashtra affairs, yesterday briefed party chief Sonia Gandhi on the status of the seat-sharing talks.

Armed with fresh instructions from Sonia, Alva ? involved in the negotiations between the state leaders of the two parties over the past few days ? rushed back to Mumbai this morning for early conclusion of the agreement.

State leaders of both camps are mounting pressure on NCP chief Sharad Pawar to sort out the ?minor hitches? by directly dealing with Sonia, but he is believed to have resisted so far. Surjeet is said to have assured him that the Congress leadership would be ?flexible? on seat-sharing.

Before going abroad earlier this week, the CPM general secretary is understood to have spoken to Sonia about the October 13 Maharashtra polls. He is said to have emphasised the need for maximising unity among secular parties to take on the Shiv Sena-BJP.

Besides accommodating two Republican Party of India factions close to the NCP, Pawar is believed to be keen on giving a few seats each to the CPM and the CPI out of the projected share of 124.

Indications, however, are that Pawar could consider meeting Sonia tomorrow if the two sides fail to clinch an agreement in Mumbai. If this meeting takes place, chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and state Congress chief Prabha Rau, too, may come to Delhi, the sources said.

The hitch is that the NCP is pitching for 10 seats in Mumbai and 16-18 in Vidarbha against six and 11 seats respectively that the Congress is willing to concede.

NCP sources said that the party in return was willing to leave more seats for the Congress elsewhere in the state.

The NCP?s expectations are dictated by its determination to further expand its presence across the state and, in particular, establish itself in Mumbai and Nagpur.

The Congress is apparently reluctant to part with even one of the nine seats at stake in Nagpur city.