PUNE: Though seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the NCP are yet to
begin, the NCP has already invited applications from aspirants for all
the 288 seats in the state. The party recently conducted interviews for the
eight assembly seats in Pune, in whcih 41 aspirants took part.

The aprty has received 320 applications for the 21 seats in Pune district. The
interviews for the remaining 13 seats in the district will be completed soon.
Aspirants from Pune are mainly sitting corporators, mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale being
one.

NCP leader and Pune district guardian Ajit Pawar denied that the interviews were
a ploy to pressurise Congress. "We have started interviews now to avoid the
problems that arose during the Lok Sabha elections. The nominations were
declared a bit late, so some candidates could not reach out to all the voters.
The aspirants have been made aware that their candidature will be cancelled if
we join hands with the Congress."

Though both the Congress and NCP are looking to go solo in the assembly polls,
their showing in the Lok Sabha polls in Pune district was dismal. The
Congress-NCP combine led in more than half of the 18 assembly segments in the
district in the 2004 polls, while in 2009, it managed leads in just nine of the
21 segments. Meanwhile, Mayawati's BSP is also planning to contest all the seats
in Maharashtra, according to party regional chief Vilas Garud. The BSP had
contested all the 48 Lok Sabha seats early this year.

Maharashtra this time and lost all of them, with most of its candidates losing
their deposits. The party was hoping to win at least 15 of the 48 Lok Sabha
seats. The Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS are yet to announce their plans for
the district. The BJP-Shiv Sena combine has already severed its alliance with
the NCP after sharing power in the Pune Municipal Corporation for two-and-a-half
years