New Delhi: A meeting of NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) legislature party is being held in Mumbai today (Oct 18, 2004) amid reports that the Sharad Pawar-led party might give outside to Congress Government in Maharashtra if its demand for Chief Ministership was not conceded.

Highly placed NCP sources said that party leader Praful Patel conveyed the party's position on the issue to Congress leader Ahmed Patel during talks last night (Oct 17, 2004).

Both the Patels have been asked by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and NCP Chief Sharad Pawar to verify the support of the two parties in the State Assembly as NCP struck a strident note on getting Chief Ministership, asserting that it had emerged as the single largest party in the polls.

NCP general secretary Tariq Anwar, who left New Delhi for Mumbai this morning to attend the legislature party meeting as an observer, said that the issue of Chief Ministership would be discussed threadbare by the newly elected party MLAs.

Ever since the results of the Assembly elections were out, the two parties are locked in a tussle to get the top post and are engaged in hectic parleys to sort it out.

The ball was set rolling with Sharad Pawar, whose NCP has emerged as the single largest party with 71 seats, meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday and staking his party's claim to the post.

On the other hand, Congress has been claiming that the party, which has 69 seats, should get the top post on the basis of support of three MLAs elected on CPM(Communist Party Marxist) tickets under a seat adjustment.

Yechuri appeared to distance himself from the NCP-Congress race saying; "We are not getting into it. We are taking a neutral view. We are supporting a secular Government. Let them (Congress and NCP) sit and decide the issue."