Maharashtra elections 2019: Congress-NCP announce seat-sharing pact, to contest 125 seats each

Maharashtra has a total of 288 seats in the Assembly. Both Congress and NCP have been rattled by the drubbing they received in the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra and a spate of defections from their ranks.

Key desertions from the Congress and the NCP camps have reshaped Maharashtra’s political landscape. As many as 24 senior leaders — including 13 serving legislators and 10 former ministers — have defected to join either the BJP or the Shiv Sena since the Congress-NCP alliance’s drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls.

In 2014, the two parties had contested the state elections separately. Sharad Pawar had ended the 15-year alliance after the two parties had been unable to reach a seat-sharing arrangement.

Congress had won 42 seats while the NCP had won 41 seats in 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 122 seats.

(With ENS inputs)