The decision to continue with the existing seat-sharing arrangement with the pre-poll allies of the last general elections was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi recently, said a senior party leader.

There was a general view among the senior party leaders that any move to please the partners would amount to weakening Congress and undermining party's ultimate goal of returning to power on its own, he said.

Even as the general polls are few months away, the allies of the ruling Congress that heads the UPA coalition have begun mounting pressure on Congress to extract more seats than the last time so as to bargain hard in the event of same arrangement returns to power at the centre.

The Congress leadership has not yet publicly reacted to the demand of the allies except in one case where party spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi made off-the-cuff remarks against Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh on seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties.

Chaturvedi had to pay the price for his act and was removed from the post of party spokesman with immediate effect. The removal of Chaturvedi, who was once party general secretary incharge of politically most sensitive state of Uttar Pradesh, was aimed at keeping allies in humour ahead of the elections.

The Nationalist Congress Party, a key ally of the Congress, which has been sharing power in Maharashtra, has this time staked claim on 41 seats of which 26 are in Maharashtra. NCP is demanding seats in other states like Goa, Madhya Pradesh and North East.

Similarly, Lok Janshakti Party of Ramvilas Paswan wanted few seats in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh claiming the party has made inroads in these states.

Last time NCP and LJP were not given single seat in the state other than Maharashtra, Bihar and one in Meghalaya. Besides, Paswan has also refused to enter into a seat-sharing agreement with Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Yadav in Bihar. This is another troubled area where Congress has to bring both of them onboard for state having strength of 40 seats in the lower House of Parliament.

The Congress seems least bothered about the pressure of the allies for two main reasons. Firstly, at this point of time when Lok Sabha polls are round the corner, the allies who in nature are secular cannot afford to switch over to opposition alliance. Secondly, the opposition National Democratic Alliance is already in disarray with its Prime Ministerial candidate LK Advani facing challenges to his leadership. Moreover, NDA would not take both Paswan and Lalu as it has more strong partner JD(U) in the NDA that currently rules Bihar.

According to a senior Congress leader the party has made up its mind that it would not leave any seat to the allies in the states where they have not been able to increase their share of votes leave aside winning a seat. The Congress high command is upset with the manner in which Samajwadi Party is attempting to blackmail its newly found ally in Uttar Pradesh putting the relations between the two at stake. The unilateral announcement of 52 Lok Sabha seats by the SP has strained the relations making ongoing seat-sharing negotiations irrelevant.#