Gujarat election: Congress, NCP announce pre-poll alliance

The Congress and Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have entered into a pre-poll alliance for the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat scheduled to be held next month.

The NCP will field three candidates as part of the alliance, the two parties announced at a joint press conference in Ahmedabad on Friday. These three seats are currently held by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

There are 182 assembly seats in Gujarat and the Congress had won 77 in the December 2017 assembly elections and the NCP had won one.

“The NCP will fight the upcoming Gujarat elections in alliance with the Congress. The NCP will contest three seats – Umreth (Anand district), Naroda (Ahmedabad) and Devgadh Baria (Dahod district) as part of the alliance,” said Jagdish Thakor, president of the Gujarat Congress.

“We will make sure that we contest these three seats with honesty. I am thankful for the trust reposed in us by the Congress. We will not do anything that will harm the image of the NCP,” NCP state unit president Jayant Patel Boskey told media persons.

The NCP and the Congress had a long-term alliance in Gujarat. A rift between the two parties came to the fore during the re-election of late Ahmed Patel, a key strategist of the party, for the Rajya Sabha seat from Gujarat in August 2017. In a cliffhanger contest, where Patel won by one vote, the Congress alleged that the NCP did not support Patel and acted like a “B-team” of the BJP.

In 2017, the Congress and the NCP contested the Gujarat assembly elections separately. The NCP’s Kandhal Jadeja was the only candidate to win from the party. He represents the Kutiyana assembly seat in Porbandar district.

Elections in Gujarat will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5, and counting of votes will take place on December 8.