NCP to contest elections in alliance with Samajwadi Party in UP: Sharad Pawar

Sharad Pawar addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

In a significant political development, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar announced on Tuesday that his party would contest the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur, scheduled to be held between February 10 and March 7.

"Of the five states going to the polls, we shall be contesting in three states. We plan to work out alliances with like-minded parties," Pawar told mediapersons here.

He said that in Uttar Pradesh, the NCP would be part of the Samajwadi Party-led alliance, while in Manipur, the party is cobbling up an understanding with the Congress, with which it shares power in Maharashtra's Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

"We are in talks with the Congress and the Trinamool Congress in Goa," Pawar added, while disclosing NCP's programme to contest in three of the five states going to the polls in February-March, barring in Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Speaking about the current political scenario in UP, Pawar said, "Communal polarisation is being done in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of Assembly elections. People are looking for a chanhe and will give a befitting reply to this."

After Swami Prasad Maurya's departure from the BJP, three more MLAs quit to join SP ahead of UP assembly elctions.