After days of wrangling and several rounds of talks to break the deadlock among the alliance partners over several Lok Sabha seats, including Sangli and Bhiwandi, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the Lok Sabha elections — the Shiv Sena (UBT) will contest 21 out of the 48 seats in the state, Congress 17 and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) 10. At a joint press conference in Mumbai where they announced the seat-sharing arrangement, the MVA leaders insisted there were no disagreements. “There is no difference on any seat… be it Sangli or any other. All decisions have been taken unanimously,” NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar said. In the seat-sharing arrangement, the Congress gave up two seats — it was eyeing — to the Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP). The Sangli seat, which had created a rift between the Congress and Sena (UBT), will be contested by the latter. Chandrahar Patil, a wrestler who belongs to the Sena (UBT), will contest from the seat as the MVA candidate, taking on BJP’s siting MP Sanjaykaka Patil. The Congress has also given up the Bhiwandi seat, which will be contested by NCP (SP) candidate Suresh Mhatre. The Sena (UBT) and Congress were at loggerheads after the former had announced the candidature of Patil for Sangli and Anil Desai for Mumbai South Central. The Congress had staked claim to both seats. Additionally, Congress leaders were irked after the NCP (SP) announced the candidature of Mhatre for Bhiwandi. At Tuesday’s press conference, former Maharashtra chief minister and Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said it was natural that discussions would go on till the end. “Ultimately, we have to close discussions somewhere and begin campaigning. There is no crime in having ambitions. However, ultimately we have to come together to win by deciding whom to defeat. We have started working together,” Uddhav said. Saying that every party wants to contest on several seats, Uddhav said, “But when you set victory as your goal, you have to keep aside your ambitions. We have to keep in mind why we are contesting, for whom we are contesting and against whom we are contesting. Taking these factors into consideration, one has to step into the election ring and win the election. The Sena UBT has announced all candidates on 21 seats it will be contesting. The Congress and NCP will announce their candidates in a couple of days.” Uddhav said the Congress has come up with a good manifesto for the country. “When the INDIA bloc comes to power, it will implement the manifesto. In Maharashtra, we will add local issues to the manifesto and then release it,” he said. Uddhav said the MVA tried to rope in the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) into its fold, but was not successful. “We had offered VBA some seats, but they were not acceptable to Prakash Ambedkar. We wanted VBA to join us, but that did not happen. We have full respect and admiration for Ambedkar,” he said. Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole also said that his party has begun the fight against “the dictatorial government”. “Any dispute over seat-sharing is over. We have decided to work to defeat the Modi government and our workers will do the same. There is no dispute over Sangli and Bhiwandi. There will be no issue of vote transfers. Original Shiv Sena and NCP are with us and workers of three parties will work together,” he said. Besides Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Patole, other top MVA leaders who were present at the joint press conference included state NCP (SP) president Jayant Patil, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and Sena UBT MP Sanjay Raut. 21-17-10 formula The Shiv Sena (UBT) will contest the Jalgaon, Parbhani, Nashik, Palghar, Kalyan, Thane, Raigad, Maval, Dharashiv, Ratnagiri, Buldhana, Hatkanaganle, Sambhajinagar, Shirdi, Sangli, Hingoli, Yavatmal-Washim, Mumbai South Central, Mumbai North West, Mumbai South and Mumbai North East constituencies. The Congress will contest the Nandurbar, Dhule, Akola, Amravati, Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondia, Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Nanded, Jalna, Mumbai North Central, Pune, Latur, Solapur, Kolhapur, Ramtek and Mumbai North seats. The NCP (SP) will contest Baramati, Shirur, Satara, Bhiwandi, Madha, Raver, Wardha, Ahmednagar, Beed and Dindori. The opposition MVA is yet to announce candidates on seven LS seats, out of which Congress has to declare candidates on two seats in Mumbai, Dhule and Jalna. NCP-SP has yet not announced candidates on Raver, Satara and Madha. The Lok Sabha elections for the 48 seats in Maharashtra will be held in five phases from April 19 to May 20.
