New Delhi, Aug 19: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday, Aug 18 ruled out the possibility of merger with Congress for Maharashtra assembly polls and termed it as 'cheap publicity', sources said.

"I can't understand why these days they are raising these questions, why they are not appealing to other parties to merge? Should I say that the Congress should merge with my party?" he asked.

Pawar was reacting to recent statements of AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh and Union Minister and Congress leader Vilasrao Deshmukh that NCP should consider merging with their party.

Speaking to a TV channel, Pawar said, "They should not say like that. One can understand in public life, political leaders do discuss certain things but there are some of our friends in Congress, I think, who prefer to discuss major issues publicly and they want to get some publicity."

"Every political party has to take their own decisions. About ten years back we contested separately. Congress contested separately but ultimately Congress had to come to us also to form the government," the NCP leader said.

OneIndia News