Trouble brews in MVA as Congress, Sena at odds over CM candidate

Former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said he had no clue about the topic of discussion at the meeting of Congress and Sena leaders.

Former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan

FORMER Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today dismissed any idea of presenting a chief ministerial face for Maha Vikas Aghadi for Assembly polls. On the contrary, Sena (UBT) has said a CM candidate will soon be declared.

Chavan and Raut’s reactions have come amidst speculations that Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray met Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi in a bid to pressure them to announce him as the CM candidate.

Chavan said there has been no such tradition in Maharashtra of declaring a chief ministerial candidate by the Opposition during Assembly elections. ”Opposition parties in the past have never declared a CM candidate during Assembly elections. And this time, it will be no different. Even the ruling party does not have a CM candidate. If the CM himself heads the campaign, it is a different matter,” he said.

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Sena (UBT) meanwhile has been keeping its cards close to its chest vis-a-vis what transpired at their discussion with top Congress leaders in Delhi. A day after Uddhav Thackeray wound up his Delhi visit, Shiv spokesperson MP Sanjay Raut, who has not been forthcoming about the discussion at their meetings, told reporters on Friday that a decision regarding a CM face will be taken soon. ”This is not the place where we can reveal the CM face, but a decision in this regard will be taken soon,” he said.

At the same time, he warned MVA partners. ”While contesting elections, there should be no differences. We should be united. There should be no attempt at trying to project oneself as ‘big brother’ in the alliance. Decisions should be taken unitedly by all three parties,” he said.

Chavan said he had no clue about the topic of discussion at the meeting of Congress and Sena leaders. ”A decision regarding a CM is always taken by the party having the maximum number of MLAs. And all this is decided after elections, when numbers present the real picture,” he said.

Meanwhile, the BJP, in a jibe at Uddhav Thackeray, said, “After spending three days in Delhi and trying to pressurise the Congress leadership to name him as CM face, Thackeray has returned home empty-handed. His self-esteem has been shattered,” said BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhaye. Also, he said, Chavan has made it clear that the CM face decision will be taken after the Assembly elections.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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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