Panaji, Nov 20 (IANS): Two weeks after NCP Vice President Praful Patel ruled out an alliance with the Congress for the 2022 Goa Assembly polls, NCP leader Narendra Verma said that his party was looking for a "respectable seat-sharing" arrangement with "secular parties" in the coastal state.

"We would like to contest when there is a respectable seat-sharing with the Congress. We do not want secular votes to be divided so that someone else doesn't benefit," Verma told a press conference in Panaji. Verma is the newly appointed observer for party affairs in Goa.

Patel earlier this month had said that the Nationalist Congress Party was keen on contesting all 40 Assembly seats.

Verma said that times had changed in Indian politics and the main political battle was no longer between the Congress and the BJP.

"Look what has happened in Bihar Assembly elections. Today, the days are gone when it was only the Congress or the BJP," the NCP leader said, adding that his party was "always open for taking along like-minded parties".

The NCP has one MLA, Churchill Alemao, in the 40-member Goa Assembly, who is extending "issue-based support" to the ruling BJP-led coalition government.