The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party will hold another round of talks on Tuesday evening, even as NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s deadline for a decision on an alliance ended on Monday evening. Both the parties have agreed that they would need more time to come to some reasonable solution to deadlock over the seat-sharing agreement in the BMC polls.
“Both the parties are positive about an alliance. It’s wrong to say that neither of us wants the alliance. I don’t know from where the media got the idea,” said Mumbai Region Congress Committee chief Kripashankar Singh. Further, he added that the Congress has not gotten stuck on any figures, neither the NCP’s 65 seats demand nor the Congress’ offer for lesser number of seats. The parties are keeping all options open.
Moreover, Mr Singh and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Manikrao Thakre said that they had officially not received any ultimatum from the NCP.
“The issue is not of setting deadlines. There is still time, but no decisions should be taken in haste, we have time till January 24, when the filling of nominations will start,” Mr Singh said.
Meanwhile, NCP regional chief Madhukar Pichad and Mumbai Pradesh chief Narendra Varma confirmed that there would another round of talk at 7 pm on Tuesday.
“We are open to talks. Mr Pawar has instructed us to be reasonably flexible in the talks,” Mr Varma said.
We are optimistic that we will get what we want. Through talks and discussions, we will find some way out of the stalemate,” Mr Varma said.