Maharashtra Assembly polls: Congress-NCP announce seat-sharing pact, to contest 125 seats each

File Pic: (Left to right) Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Indian National Congress announced a seat-sharing pact for the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election.

Both NCP and Congress will fight on 125 seats each, former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced on September 16. Maharashtra has 288 Assembly seats. Rest of the seats will be assigned to smaller allies, Chavan said.

In 2014, the two parties had contested the state elections separately. NCP chief Sharad Pawar had ended the 15-year alliance after the two parties had been unable to reach a seat-sharing arrangement.

Congress had won 42 seats while the NCP had won 41 seats in 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 122 seats, but it did not have the majority.

Shiv Sena had agreed to support the BJP in a post-poll arrangement. NCP had, at that time, said that it was ready to offer outside support to the BJP to form the government in Maharashtra.