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Maharashtra Assembly elections 2024: After Ramesh Chennithala meets Uddhav, stalled MVA talks to begin today

Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said he was hopeful that the MVA would arrive at a consensus on seat-sharing on Saturday.

Ramesh ChennithalaMaharashtra election screening committee meeting held at Delhi Himachal Bhavan on October 17. (@chennithala/X)

The stalled seat-sharing discussions among the constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Opposition alliance in Maharashtra will begin at 3 pm on Saturday, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said.

The resumption of talks follows a meeting between Congress Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala and Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai.

“We want to expedite the seat-sharing and hopefully we will reach an agreement on all seats today itself…The discussions which had been stopped will be resumed by all the three major constituents this afternoon,” Raut said after the meeting.

The Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) are the major constituents of the MVA.

Raut denied that there were major differences within the MVA. “No, we don’t have big differences in MVA. Whatever differences are there we will resolve them through discussions. In alliance politics, such differences on one or two seats are always there. But now we have decided to end the seat-sharing discussions today itself,” he said.

On Friday, Raut had alleged that Maharashtra Congress leaders were incapable of making decisions and said that he would speak to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and urge him to expedite the seat-sharing discussions. Raut had also alleged that state Congress leaders were frequently running to Delhi to get the party’s central leadership’s approval and this was delaying the seat-sharing discussions in the state.

Speaking to Marathi news channel ABP Majha, state Congress chief Nana Patole had said, “If someone says something about our leaders, it is but natural that I will respond to them. I had clarified that there is a certain procedure in our party which has to be followed. It cannot be a point of dispute. We have to tell those who do not know.”

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Asked if he was upset with Sanjay Raut, Patole said, “In Maharashtra, he has only two friends…One is Devendra Fadnavis and another is Sanjay Raut.”

When Raut was asked about Patole’s statement, he said, “Raut is MPCC chief and he will participate in today’s seat-sharing discussions.” Raut also clarified that his statement that Congress leaders were incapable of making decisions was not directed at Patole.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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