Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her residence in Delhi on Tuesday to discuss the seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections, latest reports suggest.

The Pawar-Sonia meet further strengthened the cementing of the Congress-NCP alliance which had collapsed broken before the 2014 assembly polls in Maharashtra in which BJP scored an impressive tally before aligning with the Shiv Sena.

Sources claimed that they discussed consolidating the anti BJP-Shiv Sena forces and could mull over including Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Left parties in its alliance.

Sources said detailed discussions over specific seats would continue for the next few days before a final tie-up plan was made public.

“We want that both Congress and NCP should contest on equal number of seats and the remaining seats should be for regional parties and Left parties. We are not very rigid on the issue of seat sharing but there should be a broad-based alliance in the state to counter the alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena,” said a senior leader of NCP based in Delhi.

This is the first time since becoming the interim chief of Congress that Sonia Gandhi has held talks with NCP for Maharashtra elections. The state polls are likely during October-November.

Congress MLA Jaykumar Gore from Mann-Khatav segment in Satara, former NCP MP Dhananjay Mahadik, NCP MLA Rana Jagjit Singh Patil from Tuljapur assembly segment of Osmanabad district joined the BJP in Solapur in the presence of party president Amit Shah earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the other anticipated meeting between Sonia Gandhi and former Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, regarding choosing a new party chief for Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh (MP) didn’t take place. Scindia, who has been made the chairman of the screening committee to choose candidates for the Maharashtra elections, however presided over a meeting to shortlist nominees.