MUMBAI, May 30: Cracks have emerged in the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance in Maharashtra following the Congress' decision not to part with a single seat in the forthcoming by-elections to the 10 Assembly constituencies in the state.The Samajwadi Party has fielded Uttamrao Rathod from Kannad Assembly constituency against the Congress's official candidate to lodge its protest. ``They can't take us for granted,'' party general secretary Amar Singh said here today. Having benefited from its alliance with SP and the Republican Party of India in the last Lok Sabha election, the top Congress leadership in Maharashtra has become arrogant, Singh charged.The RPI too was not too happy about the Congress' denial of seats to its alliance partners in the state. An RPI faction led by Prakash Ambedkar had given a call for boycotting the by-polls to protest against the Congress' decision to contest all ten seats. However, the RPI presidium has taken a soft stand now in expectation of better co-operation from theCongress.Singh said the Congress needed the RPI and the SP as much as these parties needed the Congress. Only yesterday, Singh said, senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar had sought the SP's support to get its nominee elected to the Rajya Sabha. The Congress wanted newspaper baron Vijay Darda to be elected to the Rajya Sabha, Singh revealed. Darda, the son of late Maharashtra minister Jawaharlal Darda, is managing director of the Lokmat group of publications and president of the Indian Newspaper Society. Biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha and the Maharashtra Legislative Council are scheduled for June 18, for which the notification was issued today. Meanwhile, the Congress, Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party are looking at the numbers required to get their nominees elected to the Rajya Sabha and the state Legislative Council. According to sources, the Congress is likely to field Najma Heptulla as the first candidate of the party. For the second candidate, likely to be Vijay Darda, the leadership haskick-started efforts to garner support from Independents and other parties. Sharad Pawar met around 15 Independents today asking them to support Darda with their first or second preference votes. Similarly, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi has convened a meeting of all the Independents supporting the coalition government in the state to ensure support for their wild card nominee, believed to be Suresh Kalmadi.The Sena and the BJP together have enough votes to send three of their nominees the to Rajya Sabha. While Satish Pradhan is the Sena's first candidate, journalist Pritish Nandi is expected to be the second preference. The BJP is almost certain of fielding Pramod Mahajan, political advisor to the Prime Minister, as its first candidate.
