The Hindu : NCP hopeful of pre-poll alliance with Cong.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 06, 2003

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NCP hopeful of pre-poll alliance with Cong.

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Jan. 5. The Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party is pleased with the positive signal from the Congress that a pre-poll alliance for the 2004 Assembly polls was ``logical''. It would like a formal understanding as soon as possible.

The NCP hopes that its gains at the cost of the Congress votes in both Goa and Gujarat can help it leverage a pre-poll tie-up. The NCP has been largely a regional entity confined to Maharashtra. But it denied the Congress victory in some 20-odd seats in the recent Gujarat elections.

If they continue to fight each other in the next round, neither will stand to gain. Unwittingly, they will be helping the BJP and Shiv Sena.

There has been no formal discussion between the two sides, but both have used the media as a sounding board. Only recently, the AICC general secretary in charge of Maharashtra had spoken of the logic of ``extending the present arrangement between friends against the enemy number one'' — the BJP and Shiv Sena.

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NCP hopeful of pre-poll alliance with Cong.