Ahmedabad

Alleging ‘betrayal’, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today said that it has severed ties with its former ally Congress and would now contest the upcoming local body polls in Gujarat at its own.

The two parties, which had contested the last Loksabha and assembly polls in the state in alliance, had on November 2 announced a similar tie up for the local polls slated to be held in two phases on November 22 and 29 to stop division of the secular votes.

NCP state spokesperson Irfan Sheikh today said that his party would now contest the local body polls all alone and try to field candidates in maximum wards. ‘ Congress betrayed us late last night by announcing candidates for Kubernagar and Gomtipura in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) even though the wards were allocated to us under the tie up. Even the earlier tie up was not hounrable for us. We had asked for 30 to 35 seats for the AMC alone but were given only five and Congress has now snatched those too. We have decided to part ways and teach congress a lesson. We will field at least 150 candidates in the first phase and in the maximum possible wards in the second phase,’ he said.

The NCP spokesperson said that his party was trying to field maximum possible candidates in the first phase too despite the development taking place today on the last day of filing nomination papers for it.

The NCP has only 2 MLAs in the state assembly.

Elections in the six municipal corporations of the state would take place in the first phase while that in the 31 district panchayats, 56 municipalities and 230 taluka panchayats would be held in the second phase. Nomination for the second phase will continue till November 10.