After losing its national party status earlier this week, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar plans to field candidates from his party in 40-45 seats in the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections.
Karnataka will witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the Congress and the JD(S).
Sharad Pawar has summoned a meeting of party leaders in Mumbai on Saturday to finalise the NCP’s plans for the assembly elections in Karnataka scheduled for May 10.
“We are meeting in Mumbai tomorrow to finalise our plans for the Karnataka elections,” said Pawar, as quoted by news agency PTI.
Earlier, the party had written to the Election Commission to allocate the ‘alarm clock’ symbol for the Karnataka Assembly elections, a request that was acceded to by the poll authority.
The move is also seen as an attempt by the NCP to regain the coveted national party status it was stripped of after its poor performance in recent assembly elections in states such as Goa, Meghalaya and Manipur.
NCP leaders said that the party was planning to field candidates in 40-45 of the total 224 seats, across the state, and may also extend support to the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti in the Maharashtra-Karnataka boundary region which is home to a sizeable Marathi-speaking population.
Pawar’s Karnataka poll plan was announced a day after his meeting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi on the need to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The Congress party is hopeful of winning 140-150 seats in the Karnataka Assembly polls. The BJP is aiming to retain power in the state,
while JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy has said that his party will form the government on its own by winning 123 seats.
Currently, the BJP has 119 MLAs, the Congress has 75 and the JD(S) has 28 seats.
The assembly elections will be held on May 10 and counting is scheduled for May 13.