2017 Gujarat Assembly Elections - Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) To Contest On All Seats Solo

It's official. 

For the upcoming Gujarat Assembly Elections, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress is not forming an alliance as was speculated. The talks between the Sharad Pawar-led party and the Congress party failed. On Monday, the NCP decided to contest alone for all the 182 constituencies in the state. "We have decided to contest all alone and single-handedly for the Gujarat assembly elections. We don't want to tie up with the Congress as we have been doing in the past," NCP spokesperson Yusuf Parmar was quoted as saying to IANS.

"Our party will be fielding candidates for all the 182 constituency seats," he added.

NCP leader Praful Patel, who is confident about the solo fight, said though the part wanted to form an alliance, the Congress "did not seem serious and kept on delaying".

The party's decision came a day after the Congress declared its first list of 77 candidates for the first phase of the elections slated for December 9.

Soon after the Congress announced yesterday that it had struck a deal with Hardik Patel's Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) for quotas for Patels in jobs and education, the NCP decided to make the announcement.

The Congress alleged that the alliance broke down because of the NCP's demand for more seats in Gujarat than it should have in the present situation.

The Congress state in-charge, Ashok Gehlot, said that "The seat-sharing alliance would have been possible only if the NCP had made limited demands."

In 2007 and 2012, the NCP and the Congress had fought the state elections in alliance. In the present Assembly, the NCP has two MLAs.

Voting for the two-phase polls IN Gujarat are scheduled for December 9 and 14. The vote count will take place on December 18,2017