Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said that he is not surprised by the seat-sharing pact announced by sparring allies BJP and Shiv Sena on Tuesday.
The former Union minister said that the electoral understanding between the saffron siblings was an expected conclusion.
Overcoming their recent bitter relations, BJP and Shiv Sena announced to contest the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections together on Monday.
Pawar said that there is nothing new in their announcement of fighting polls together as they have been alliance partners for over 25 years and thus were expected to contest jointly.
He said that they had been vocal against each other only in the last few years, but it was expected for them to contest jointly.
On the matter of the pre-poll understanding between NCP and Congress, Pawar said they are yet to arrive at the solution of "one or two seats".
He said that both the parties will hold their first joint rally in Nanded on Wednesday and another will be held in Beed in Marathwada on 23 February.
According to a source, both parties haven’t yet reached an agreement on exchanging Aurangabad and Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seats, which are currently held by the Sena and BJP.
He added that the Congress is willing to field a candidate from Ahmednagar seat but NCP is not relenting as it feels it enjoys more influence in the constituency than Congress.
The formal seat-sharing announcement is expected to be made after discussions with potential allies.
Both the parties had contested the state assembly polls of 2014 separately.