NEW DELHI, JULY 27: The Congress on Tuesday reached an electoral understanding with one of the three factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI), headed by Prakash Ambedkar, to defeat the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Maharashtra.Announcing the tie-up at a joint press conference here, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Madhavrao Scindia and Ambedkar said that details of the adjustment of seats were being worked out and these would be made known within a week.Asked whether this would create any problem for the Congress in having seat adjustment with the one headed by R S Gawai, Scindia, in charge of the State affairs, said that he did not see any difficulty on this front.To a question whether he would take exception to the Congress joining hands with the Gawai faction, Ambedkar, son of B R Ambedkar, said there was no such proposal as of now.Asked whether the tie-up would be confined only to seat-adjustment or go beyond to sharing of power at the Centre and in the State, the two leaders said that this would be worked out later.Replying to a question, Scindia said that Ambedkar had not put any condition for the tie-up as ``our main aim is to defeat BJP and Shiv Sena in the elections''.The State level leaders of the two parties would shortly meet at Mumbai and decide about the number of seats they would contest in both the elections, Scindia said.Scindia said the two parties were holding talks for some time to strengthen secular forces in the State to take on BJP and Shiv Sena in the coming polls and now ``we have found a common platform to work together''.Ambedkar said his party had aligned with the Congress in the last Lok Sabha polls too and ``we have decided to stick to this alliance in the coming polls''.``We held preliminary round of talks regarding seat adjustments between the two parties, both for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and it will take at least a week to specify how many seats each party would be contesting,'' he said.Lashing out at the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, Scindia said that the law and order situation was worse there and it was high time the secular forces united to effectively meet this challenge.AICC general secretary Sushil Kumar Shinde, party spokesmen Ajit Jogi and Anil Shastri, State leaders Gurudas Kamath and Suresh Kalmadi were also present at the conference.
