Upbeat over the Congress' electoral performance in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Monday said the state party leadership will discuss the issue of contesting the upcoming assembly polls on its own.
"We will discuss the issue with our Members of Parliament and leaders," Chavan said when asked whether the party would consider contesting the assembly elections on its own.
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have been running a coalition government in Maharashtra for over nine years. Chavan's remarks come close on the heels of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh demanding that the Congress contest the assembly elections on its own. The chief minister said the matter would be discussed and debated among the state leadership and a proposal would be put before the party high command for a final view.
"We will abide by the decision of the high command," he said.
Deshmukh added that the Congress' experiment of contesting polls on its own in Uttar Pradesh under the leadership of All India Congress Committee General Secretary Rahul Gandhi had shown excellent results.
A delegation of newly-elected Members of Parliament led by Chavan met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday. Baliram Jadhav, who won the Palghar seat on a Bahujan Vikas Aghadi ticket, was also among the MPs who met Sonia and Dr Singh. The Congress won 17 seats in Maharashtra while the NCP had to be content with only eight seats.
