They also cautioned the party workers of a clandestine agreement between the NCP and Shiv Sena, which might harm the Congress after the Parliament election.
MPCC president Mr Manikrao Thakre had called a meeting of district unit presidents earlier this week to know their opinions.
A majority of them said the alliance had helped the NCP more than the Congress as Mr Sharad Pawar’s party was gaining at the cost of the Congress and if the leaders persisted with the partnership the Congress would be doomed.
The state Congress leaders are wary of Mr Pawar as they do not rule out some unilateral decision by the NCP on seat adjustment. More so, they seem to be wary, after what Mr Lalu Prasad and Mr Ram Vilas Paswan did to the Congress in Bihar. The NCP’s ambition is to contest for a modest number of seats and win most of them which will give it upper hand in the post-election bargain.
At the meeting , the Congress workers said they were getting confused while answering voters’ question on who would be their candidate for Prime Minister since the ally NCP has almost made Mr Pawar for PM as its poll plank.
The NCP and Shiv Sena have reached an undeclared understanding to ditch their respective election-allies, the district president pointed out to the state leadership of the Congress.
Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, now head of the Congress campaign committee, also holds similar view of the political arrangement.
At every negotiation, he had refused to accede to the NCP demand for more than 21 seats in the state. Mr Deshmukh and his other colleagues want 27 Congress and 21 NCP allotment worked out in previous election to stay. Chief minister Mr Ashok Chavan is believed to be accommodative and hopeful of working out a pact agreeable to both the Congress and NCP.
Mr Thakre heard the party workers and asked them to keep off the NCP rallies ~ particularly the ones addressed by Mr Pawar ~ until a final decision on who would fight from where was sorted out. The district presidents have pointed out that the sugar-rich western Maharashtra has slipped out of the Congress since the last Parliament elections.
“If we persist with the alliance the party will soon be wiped out by the NCP” some of the district officials from western Maharashtra told the MPCC president Mr Thakre.
