Congress leaders review political situation in Maharashtra

After a crushing defeat in Maharashtra assembly elections, state Congress leaders met here tonight to review the political situation. The meeting held at Gandhi Bhavan, the Congress party's office in South Mumbai, was attended by Maharashtra state unit Congress chief Manikrao Thakre, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, senior leaders like Narayan Rane, Sushilkumar Shinde, Ashok Chavan, Balasaheb Thorat, Hussain Dalwai and Sharad Ranpise, Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan.

Other leaders like Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Harshvardhan Patil and Patangrao Kadam could not attend the meeting since they were not in Mumbai. Naseem khan told PTI that the leaders reviewed the political situation in Maharashtra. "We accept the mandate of the people and will perform the role of the opposition in the legislative assembly," he said. Khan said a separate meeting would be held to analyse the reasons of the defeat, adding that no decision has been taken yet about convening a Congress Legislature Party meeting to elect leaders.

Congress won only 42 seats out of the 288 Maharashtra assembly seats it had contested. Rajya Sabha MP Hussain Dalwai said Congress would play the role of a "constructive opposition" and continue to raise issues concerning the people. He also said that the issue of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) offering support to BJP to form the government was also discussed during the meeting. Dalwai rejected NCP leader Ajit Pawar's charge that Congress had approached him to form a Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena government. "The mandate for us is to sit in the opposition which we will abide by," he said.