New Delhi: Congress today (Oct 24, 2004) offered three additional ministerial berths and two portfolios from its quota to its ally NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) in return for Chief Ministership in Maharashtra and made it clear "we cannot go beyond this".

Senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi that "now it was for them (NCP) to respond."

Asked whether there was any proposal for two Deputy Chief Ministers, he said there were many proposals including this one.

"This is our proposal and now it is for them (NCP) to respond," Mukherjee said.

He said he did not want to go into arithmetic and this was all that Congress could offer.

Asked if CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet's help would be sought to resolve the deadlock, the Defence Minister dismissed it saying if the two parties could not resolve it, how could any third party do.

Asked about Surjeet's allegation that Congress was playing power politics, Mukherjee said he would not respond to the query merely because some journalists were saying.

He emphasised Congress was for leading the Government in Maharashtra. "We are for a status quo as the mandate is for the status quo," he said.