JOIN USThe Nagpur mega procession-cum-rally has brought the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) closer and has brighten the possibilities of the two former alliance partners to contest the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls together.
In 1999, Congress and NCP had contested separately and came together after the polls to form the Democratic Front government. Thereafter, they entered a seat-sharing arrangement and contested the 2004 and 2009 polls together. However, ahead of the 2014 polls, the alliance broke off and they contested separately following which the BJP-Shiv Sena came to power.
Former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who is the President of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) and NCP General Secretary Prafull Patel hinted the possibility of the two parties coming together in the next state polls.
Since the separation of the Congress and NCP - not only the two parties lost the Assembly polls, they also got a drubbing in the local bodies polls - losing the No 1 position to the BJP.
The two parties are now concentrating on floor coordination in the Maharashtra legislature to corner the BJP-Sena government and the next year's elections to seats in the Council.
"The Nagpur Jan Akrosh-Halla Bol procession cum rally was a major show of strength of both the parties individually and collectively," political observers said.