Congress, NCP reach seat sharing arrangement for Maharashtra by-election, Legislative Council polls

Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have announced their alliance for the upcoming Maharashtra by-elections and the Legislative Council elections, media reports said. Congress and NCP decided to contest three seats each in the MLC elections. In the bypolls, the NCP will contest Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha seat, while the Congress will contest Palghar Lok Sabha seat. The Congress will also contest the Palus-Kadegaon Assembly seat. [caption id=“attachment_2394860” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Ibn Live[/caption] In the MLC polls, the two parties swapped Latur-Beed-Osmanabad and Parbhani-Hingoli seats with each other. The Congress decided to field Suresh Deshmukh in Parbhani-Hingoli in place of NCP’s sitting MLC Abdullah Khan Durrani, while the NCP decided to field Ramesh Karad in place of sitting Congress MLC Dilip Deshmukh for Latur-Beed-Osmanabad seat. NCP was keen on contesting Latur-Beed-Osmanabad seat as its former rebel MLA Suresh Dhas is contesting on a BJP ticket from the seat. The elections to the six local authorities seats were necessitated as three members of the NCP, two members of the BJP and a Congress MLC are retiring on 21 June. The Lok Sabha and Assembly by-election is called due to  Nana Patole's resignation as BJP MP of Bhandara Gondia and deaths of Chintaman Wanga of BJP(Palghar Lok Sabha seat) and Congress leader Patangrao Kadam (Palus Kadegaon Assembly constituency). Earlier, such an understanding proved fruitful for Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh by-elections, when the two traditional arch-rivals in the state, succeeded in defeating the BJP from its core constituencies. The Mayawati-led BSP decided not to contest the polls and asked its workers to rally behind the Samajwadi Party contestant in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the seats previously represented by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. With inputs from PTI