Congress offered NCP(SP), the party headed by Sharad Pawar, to merge with it, News18 reported. This comes a day after reports claimed that Congress made a similar offer to Mamata Banerjee's TMC, though it denied it. Notably, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said Sharad Pawar should take initiative of merging smaller parties that broke from Congress back into Congress.