Nationalist Congress Party

It was formed on May 25, 1999, by Sharad Pawar, P.A. Sangma, and Tariq Anwar after a dispute with the the Congress (I) Party about the role of Sonia Gandhi in the party's leadership. The three leaders protesting about Italian roots of Sonia Gandhi.

In January 2004, Sangma quit the NCP to join with NEPF because he felt Sharad Pawar was getting closer to NCP's enemy Sonia Gandhi.

The NCP advertises itself a progressive, secular party that stands for "democracy, Gandhian secularism, equity, social justice, and federalism." It positions itself as a moderate, left-leaning alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. The party's election symbol is an analog clock that reads 10:00. The party is in power in state of Maharashtra with Congress(I) support and some of its members are in Manmohan Singh's cabinet at center, after victory of Congress(I) in 2004.

Table of contents

1 NCP Policies 1.1 Proposed Governmental Commissions 2 See also 3 External links

NCP Policies

• Establishment of a national agricultural policy
• Establishment of a national policy to empower women
• Review and revision to the national health policy to add a separate sub-component on women's health
• Integrated implementation of a national nutrition policy to merge and coordinate various services provided by different government departments and agencies
• Citizenship law reform to stipulate that high offices in government be confined to natural-born Indian citizens (see Sonia Gandhi)
• Reserving for women one-third of the seats in parliament and in state legislatures
• Enactment of a competition law to protect against corrupt practices
• Enactment of a bio-diversity law to protect bio-diversity and intellectual property
• Enactment of a law establishing an independent telecasting authority

• Politics of India
• List of political parties in India

• Official NCP website