The NCP may have announced its decision of a pre-poll alliance with the Congress for the coming general elections, but a claim regarding the Kolhapur constituency could topple the apple cart.
It is given that the Congress will stake a claim to the Kolhapur seat, as the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Sadashivrao Mandlik joined the party in 2011 and this might upset their ally NCP.
After reviewing the current political situation, NCP chief Sharad Pawar recently announced a pre-poll alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections. Mr Pawar also asked the party workers to start preparing to contest the party’s 22 Lok Sabha seats across the state, as he believes that the general elections will be held this year itself.
According to sources, “The NCP has started preparations to contest the 22 seats, which includes the Kolhapur seat. However, the Congress is ready to stake its claim to the Kolhapur seat, which might irk the NCP.”
A senior party functionary from Congress said that there was a mutual understanding between both the parties that if one has an elected representative on a seat, then that party would lay its claim on the same. The leader reminded that when former Shiv Sena leader Narayan Rane joined Congress with some Shiv Sena MLAs, the NCP was left with no choice, but to leave those Assembly seats for the Congress.
It is also believed that the NCP would not accept the claim of Congress as the party has three MLAs out of the six Assembly constituencies for the Kolhapur Lok Sabha seat. NCP leaders Hasan Mushrif from Kagal, K.P. Patil from Radhanagari and Sandhyadevi Kupekar from Chandgad Assembly constituency have won these seats.
The source said that recently when Mr Pawar took a seat-wise review meeting of all the 22 Lok Sabha seats, Kolhapur NCP leaders raised the same issue. But, the NCP chief rejected their fear saying that the seat was the NCP’s.
Hinting on the claim to the Kolhapur seat, Congress state unit president Manikrao Thakre said, “Right now there are no such discussions between both the parties, but we will make the claim on our share of seats.”