Congress Central Election Committee met in New Delhi today amid continuing stalemate on seat sharing with NCP for upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra. The meeting was attended among others, by party president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior party leaders Janardan Dwivedi, Mukul Vasnik and Girija Vyas.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan also attended the meeting. AIR correspondent reports that Congress is not willing to give more than 126 seats to NCP which wants to contest from 144 seats in the 288 member assembly. Earlier, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had said that Congress will announce its 1st list of candidates today. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has also called its core committee meeting in Mumbai today to discuss the seat sharing issue with Congress. On the other hand, BJP leaders may hold a fresh round of talks with Shiv Sena leaders today.
Maharashtra BJP has conveyed that party office bearers will meet in Mumbai tomorrow morning.
Earlier yesterday, Shiv Sena Chief made a final offer of 119 seats to BJP and 18 seats to other smaller allies of grand alliance or Mahayuti. As per the offer, Shiv Sena will contest 151 seats. However, BJP has said that there is nothing new in the offer.

Yesterday, BJP core committee meet continued till late night in New Delhi and it was decided to continue efforts for respectable and mature understanding on seat sharing between the two allies. Today, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghtana leader Raju Shetty suggested to both Sena and BJP to resolve their seat sharing issue till today evening.