The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss a possible alliance ahead of the upcoming elections of members of the state Legislative Council. The meeting, however, yielded few results as, according to sources, the party leaders just offered suggestions and formulas to each other. The final decision will be taken by the high command of both the parties.

NCP state president Sunil Tatkare and Congress state president Ashok Chavan met at the official residence of Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Assembly where, according to a senior Congress legislator, both the parties presented their formula of the seats that they would contest.

“Both Congress and NCP want to contest two seats and each party expects the other to contest a single seat as only three candidates of Congress-NCP alliance can possibly win the election,” said the legislator on the condition of anonymity.

The election for 11 posts of the Council is slated to be held soon as the term of 11 members will get over in July. The Election Commission of India has already issued the programme for the member who will be elected from Thane Local Body constituency. NCP has announced the candidature of outgoing deputy chairman of the council House Vasantrao Davkhare for the Thane local body constituency.

According to sources, the quota to win the seats is 30. Congress has 42 MLAs while NCP has 41 MLAs. That means 12 and 11 additional votes will remain from Congress and NCP quota respectively. While it would be easy for each candidate from Congress and NCP but for the third candidate, both the parties have to manage seven additional votes to win the third seat.

Commenting on this, Mr Tatkare said, “I asked Congress to allow NCP to contest two seats this time and we will allow Congress to contest two seats in the 2018 MLC election. We will meet once again, but if the issues remain unresolved, party chief Sharad Pawar will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi to come to a decision. But the NCP leader also said that he was confident that the matters would be resolved within the state-level.

Mr Chavan, on the other hand, said that the NCP’s offer would be discussed among party legislators. “The final decision will be taken at the party president level,” he said. Meanwhile, sources claimed that that Congress would support Mr Davkhare in the MLC election from the Thane Local body constituency as the NCP forms the majority in the constituency.