New Delhi: A day after the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) held series of marathon meetings, the grand old party held the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet here on Thursday to discuss the talks with the NCP over its alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
After the CWC meet, Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said, “We apprised the CWC about the latest political situation in Maharashtra.”
He said discussions are going on with the NCP. “Yesterday (Wednesday) there were discussions with the NCP and today it will continue and finally I think we will have a decision by tomorrow in Mumbai,” he said.
Venugopal said that there were positive outcomes from the meeting and we have to finalise those decisions.
According to Congress sources, the CWC headed by party chief Sonia Gandhi has given its go-ahead to the deal to forge an alliance with the BJP’s pre-poll ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
Senior Congress leader and Maharashtra in-charge Mallikarjun Kharge said: “We have informed the CWC about our parleys with the NCP.”
The party sources said that the Congress and the NCP will meet again in afternoon to discuss the common minimum programme and then head to Mumbai to hold talks with the Shiv Sena on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Congress-NCP had marathon meeting of five hours which ended around midnight and a Common Minimum Programme was agreed upon with Shiv Sena leaders over the phone.
Maharashtra was put under the President’s rule on November 12 after the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP were unable to form the government in the state.
In the October 21 elections, the results of which were declared on October 24, the BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 105 out of 288 seats. Shiv Sena bagged 56, while the NCP and the Congress won 54 and 44 seats respectively.
However, the alliance of the BJP and the Shiv Sena fell after Uddhav Thackeray demanded rotational chief ministerial post, a demand denied by the saffron party.
