Maha polls: Congress, NCP, allies field candidates against each other

With no consensus on seat-sharing, the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and their smaller allies have ended up fielding candidates against each other.

With no consensus on seat-sharing, the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and their smaller allies have ended up fielding candidates against each other.

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The Congress and NCP claim smaller parties like Swabhimani Sangathana, Peasants and Workers Party, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Samajwadi Party are part of their grand alliance. However, most of these parties claim the Congress-NCP did not keep its promises and fielded candidates or have allowed rebels opposite their candidates. In some of the constituencies, the parties have locked horns in ‘friendly fights’, claiming it will help them score over the ruling party candidates. However, the move is likely to damage their winning prospects, party insiders said.

The Congress and NCP too have differences between them over the sharing of seats, too, and have fielded candidates separately on six seats. After hard bargaining between top leaders of both parties, four of them have been withdrawn. In Aheri (Gadchiroli), however, there are official candidates of both the parties against each other. NCP’s Palghar candidate Amit Ghoda deserted the party after officially filing nomination and went back to his original party, Shiv Sena. It helped the Congress continue with its candidate.

The Congress has 146 candidates in the fray, while NCP has 117. The Congress’s Aurangabad West candidate has been disqualified.

Swabhimani Paksha, led by Raju Shetti, has accused the Congress-NCP of fielding rebels in constituencies allotted to them. “We had asked for five seats, but we were given three seats and two of them have rebels from the Congress and NCP. We withdrew our nomination from one constituency on the Congress’s request, but the Congress continued its nomination in Nandurbar against our candidate. This cannot be called an alliance, but we will consider whether to continue to be part of it after the elections,” said Shetti.

PWP is in a friendly fight with alliance partners in Alibaug and Pen, where the Congress has fielded its candidate as part of the poll strategy as the vote division will help PWP candidate win. “Other constituencies are facing rebellion and the alliance will not help anybody, it seems. The Congress-NCP did not actually give us the 38 seats that were promised,” said PWP leader Jayant Patil.

The CPI has fielded 16 candidates, while the CPM has six candidates in the fray. The Congress and NCP have their candidates in the constituencies being contested by Left parties. “They have carried our photographs on the joint manifesto, but we are not able to understand what it means. This will definitely affect the prospects of some of the candidates of the alliance,” said Subhash Lande of CPI.

The Congress and NCP have withdrawn their candidates in Mann (Satara) and Khanapur (Sangli) to support independent candidates as part of the pact between all opposition parties. In Mann, all parties have come together to beat Jaykumar Gore, while in Khanapur, they are against Shiv Sena’s Anil Babar.

Ganesh Patil, general secretary, Congress, said, “We are fighting the polls in coordination, leaving behind the differences. The smaller parties wanted more seats than offered, but everything has been sorted out.”