Cong, NCP fail to reach agreement

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party will go it alone in the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections to be held on April 11, reports G Mohiuddin Jeddy.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party will go it alone in the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections to be held on April 11.

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On Sunday, Hindustan Times reported that despite days of deliberations, the alliance between the two parties was unlikely due to the opposition from the local units.

The senior State and Central leadership of both the parties had been insisting on an alliance in keeping with the

arrangement for all the other elections.

Both the parties held press conferences on Sunday to announce the break down of talks and to release their list of candidates.

Said Congress leader Subodh Mohite, “The alliance did not happen due to the adamant nature of the local NCP leadership.”

The Congress released a list of 28 candidates while the NCP, 78. Monday is the last day of filing nominations for 89 seats.

Navi Mumbai Congress President Namdeo Bhagat said: “We were ready to contest alone and are confident of doing well.”

Member of Parliament Sanjeev Naik of the NCP denied the allegation.

“We had agreed to the formula of 67 seats for NCP and 22 for the Congress. We even gave the seats of our sitting corporators including that of the previous mayor as demanded. But they refused to give us one seat that we had asked for our deputy mayor, whose ward has been reserved.”

Naik’s son Sanjeev said: “Our past performance shows what we are capable of. We are confident of securing a majority in the Corporation on our own.”