Amid Sena UBT-Cong tussle over seats, MVA meet tomorrow to break stalemate

“There are no disagreements within the Maha Vikas Aghadi. Discussions regarding seat allocation are ongoing and will be concluded soon. So far, discussions on 96 seats for Congress have been completed. Tomorrow, further talks will be held with NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar and Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray. After these discussions, we will try to announce the list of candidates tomorrow itself,” said Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole.

On Sunday, the Congress cancelled its Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting to finalise candidates and urged the Maharashtra leadership to stay put in Delhi as Sena (UBT) leaders huddled in party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s residence, Matoshree, in Mumbai.

In a bid to pressure the other side, representatives of both SS-UBT and Congress met Pawar seeking his intervention. Both parties have locked horns after the Sena UBT sought seats from Vidarbha, which the Congress claimed were its strongholds.

On Monday, both the parties claimed there were no major differences between them over the sharing of seats for Assembly elections. The two parties said the differences were limited to a handful of seats in Vidarbha and these would be ironed out in a day or two.

The Congress held its screening committee and CEC meeting for around 57 assembly seats in Delhi on Monday. Sena UBT MP Sanjay Raut said there were differences over one or two seats and added that a few sacrifices have to be made in the national interest.

He expressed hope that the way the Sena UBT had shown “large-heartedness” by giving up its three seats – Kolhapur, Amravati, and Ramtek – to Congress during the Lok Sabha polls, the latter would reciprocate the gesture in Vidarbha for the Assembly polls.

“All of us have been in politics for years and every party feels that its worker should be fielded in the polls. But in an alliance… especially during seat sharing, everyone has to make a few sacrifices and take a few steps back,” the Sena UBT MP added.

Discarding any possibility of the Congress snapping its ties with the Shiv Sena (UBT), Leader of the Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar on Monday termed the alliance as strong as Fevicol.

“There has been a systematic effort by the BJP to break the Maha Vikas Aghadi and create confusion. We want to assert that there is absolutely no second thought about contesting this election as the MVA and we will contest this election in alliance with Sena (UBT),” Wadettiwar told reporters in New Delhi.

Wadettiwar discarded the reports that Congress leaders had asked the party high command to explore options of going solo in Maharashtra Assembly elections 2024.
“There is absolutely no truth in reports that Congress leaders have asked to go solo in elections. We are going to fight in an alliance. We have not said anything to our leadership about going solo,” he said.

The Congress leader added, “MVA yeh Fevicol ka mazboot jod hai, yeh tutega nahi (MVA is a strong bond joined by Fevicol. It won’t break).”

After the CEC meeting, Maharashtra Congress in-charge Ramesh Chennithala told The Indian Express, “We discussed and finalised 63 seats in the meeting. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be meeting Uddhav Thackeray ji and Sharad Pawar ji in Mumbai where all the seats will be discussed. After discussing with them, we might announce the candidate list.”

He added that the matter of seats sharing has been resolved. “The Congress CEC will again meet on October 25 where remaining seats will be discussed. The final list will be announced on October 25,” he added.