Date:10/01/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/01/10/stories/2004011020771100.htm

National

Pawar may meet Sonia

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI, JAN. 9. The much-awaited meeting between the Nationalist Congress Party chief, Sharad Pawar, and the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, is likely to take place early next week.

According to senior NCP leaders, the meeting will in all probability take place before the January 14 meeting of the NCP working committee, which is expected to take a final decision on the party's alliance for the next Lok Sabha polls.

Highly-placed NCP sources say that the party will in all likelihood opt for a nationwide alliance with the Congress despite the fact that the NCP leadership has in the past few weeks received several overtures from the National Democratic Alliance. It has also been under pressure from the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Purno Sangma, and other leaders from the northeast to align with the NDA.

The NCP leadership appears to have come round to the idea of aligning with the Congress in view of the strong feelings in favour of extending the alliance with it from Maharashtra where the two parties are running a coalition government. "Our main support base is Maharashtra. It would be suicidal to ignore their sentiments," said a senior NCP leader.

The proposed alliance will be a nationwide alliance and not limited to Maharashtra. The NCP leadership believes that both parties will stand to gain, especially in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, and Bihar, in addition to Maharashtra. "The whole idea of the secular front is to avoid a split in the anti-BJP votes, and that can only be done if we extend our alliance to other States as well," said a senior NCP leader.

In contrast to the much-publicised attempt by the NDA to entice the NCP into joining the NDA, the Congress and the NCP have been negotiating behind the scenes for the past two weeks. The Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, has held several round of talks with Mr. Pawar. According to sources, the NCP has asked for larger share of seats both for the Assembly as well as the Lok Sabha elections and the issue is likely to be sorted out at the Pawar-Sonia Gandhi meeting next week. "We have always been for a secular front, what we want is a respectable and equitable arrangement," said a senior NCP leader.