Mumbai: Congress today (Oct 29, 2004) began its exercise to elect a new leader of its legislature party in Maharashtra.

Newly-elected party MLAs gathered at Vidhan Bhawan today for the Congress Legislature Party meeting.

Ahead of the meeting, party observers including central leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ashok Gehlot and AICC (All India Congress Committee) general secretary Margaret Alva, who is also in-charge of party affairs in the State, were meeting individual legislators to know their views, party sources said.

The new CLP leader to be elected today will eventually be sworn in as the new chief minister of Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, the legislature party meeting of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) also began today.

Central NCP leaders Tariq Anwar and general secretary D P Tripathi are present as central observers for the meeting.

NCP legislators had a first round of meeting this morning and the second round of meeting to elect the new legislature party leader is likely to begin soon, party sources said.

Failing to get a consensus on selection of new legislature party leader, NCP observers are seeking opinion of individual legislators, party sources said.

Meanwhile, names of senior NCP leaders R R Patil, Padamsinh Patil, Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, Jayant Patil and Chaggan Bhujbal, have come up in the individual meetings of legislators held with observers so far, sources said.