New Delhi, Sep 16 - The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is ready to concede more seats to its ally Congress in the Maharashtra assembly elections and seat sharing talks between them are going on smoothly, NCP leader Praful Patel said Wednesday.

'The Congress contested a large number of seats last time, they will contest more seats this time. Some seats do not exist after delimitation (of constituencies). We are ready to give certain seats to Congress,' he told reporters here.

A Congress leader close to the development, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that NCP had agreed to concede around 20 seats more than in the 2004 elections when the Congress contested 157 seats.

Praful Patel's statement comes a day after the Congress and NCP's first round of official talks over seat sharing ended in Mumbai.

Patel said: 'There is no problem in arriving at a seat sharing arrangement. We will contest the elections together.