Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad on Thursday said the party was strong in 3-4 seats in the city and will opt for equal sharing of seats with its alliance partner here for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Regarding the exit of former Lok Sabha MP Milind Deora from the Congress last week, Gaikwad said she tried to convince him several times and also told him that he will be part of the seat sharing discussion, however, he cut-off all communications a day prior to his exit and moved on. Gaikwad was speaking at the Town Hall, organised by The Indian Express. "We are strong in three to four seats of the six in Mumbai and we will go for equal sharing of seats. ultimately all Mumbai seats will be discussed in front of the high command. We will place positive and negative sides of possible candidates from both our parties. Based on that, the one who has the highest chance of winning a particular seat will get it," said Gaikwad. When asked about seat sharing in Maharashtra, she said that state Congress President Nana patole did the calculations and that it will be finalised soon. Gaikwad said that in a political alliance, sometimes there are sacrifices and sometime gains, but "that does not mean that only one party will keep on sacrificing". When asked about the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s statement about contesting 23 seats from Maharashtra, Gaikwad said that she had met Uddhav Thackeray after that, following which there were no further statements. "When the statement about contesting 23 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra came from the Sena, I had personally gone and met Uddhav Thackeray ji. He had assured me then that there will be no statement from their side. If you check, they haven't said anything on it after that," Gaikwad said. When asked about the delay in the seat sharing decision, Gaikwad said only primary round of discussions were held and that as second round was expected to be held in a few days. "The picture will be clear soon," she said. Gaikwad, who is also likely to be the party candidate from Mumbai South Central Lok Sabha constituency, said she didn't know who who will contest from which seat. "I owe our allegiance to our party and will work as per the orders of the party." When asked about Milind Deora's resignation from the party and joining the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, Gaikwad said Deora had cut off all the communication since the afternoon of the day prior to his exit. "There is nothing wrong in having political ambition. But party stands supreme in every situation. I had personally told him (Deora) that there was no decision on seats in Mumbai. I told him that, the Sena will be aggressive in demanding seats, similarly we will also put forward our points effectively. I had asked him to join me in negotiations," Gaikwad said. She said that he had agreed on the same but “we suddenly saw very fast movement and I suspect it could have been in the wake of the launch of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra".
