Mumbai
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have stitched up a coalition for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, NCP leader Sharad Pawar told party workers at Gondia in Maharashtra on Sunday evening.

Addressing a gathering of NCP workers in senior party leader Praful Patel’s stronghold, Pawar said the Congress, the NCP and the Peasants and Workers Party will contest the Lok Sabha elections as an alliance.

“We have completed talks for 40 seats and a decision on the remaining eight seats will be taken soon. If there is any confusion, the leaders of both parties will solve the problems,” Pawar said.

Maharashtra Congress party president Ashok Chavan told reporters here that some pending issues relating to sharing of seats will be cleared by party president Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Smaller parties like the Swambhimani Shetkari Sanghatana and the communist parties will be accommodated in the quotas of the two parties, sources said.

Both the Congress parties are also said to be wooing Prakash Ambedkar’s Bahujan Bharipa Mahasangh though the latter has been told to break ties with Owaisi brothers’ AIMIM. Leaders of both the outfits say the seat-sharing exercise would be completed in the next few weeks so that both outfits can start process of selecting candidates.

Meanwhile, Pawar also bowled a googly into the political field by admitting that he used to give advice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The prime minister during a visit to Baramati sometime ago had called Pawar his guru in politics. Pawar told a gathering of teachers in Gondia that Modi used to seek his advice only during his first two years as prime minister.