Boosted by Karnataka results, MVA shifts gears to 2024 seat-sharing, braces for leadership bump

Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Nana Patole, Balasaheb Thorat and others during a meeting at Pawar’s residence, in Mumbai, Sunday, May 14, 2023. (PTI Photo)

However, sources in the Opposition alliance say that the real challenge facing the MVA would be centred on its leadership and trust issues and not related to the constituents’ ideological differences or their seat-sharing formula.

As part of the plan to hold joint “vajramuth (iron fist)” rallies against the Shinde Sena-BJP government across the state, the MVA allies have held three such rallies since April – in Sambhajinagar, Nagpur and Mumbai – where their shows of unity were overshadowed by leadership-related differences as the Sena (UBT) sought to project Uddhav as the MVA’s principal leader.

A slew of leaders in the Congress and the NCP have questioned the Sena (UBT)’s bid to present Uddhav as the face of the MVA’s leadership. A senior NCP leader, requesting anonymity, said, “The Sena ( UBT) projecting Uddhav as the MVA leader in rallies is not to our liking. We don’t accept it. In NCP our leader is Sharad Pawar, and he is also a key MVA leader.”

Buoyed by the Karnataka poll results, the three MVA partners believe that the only way to give the Shinde Sena-BJP combine a tough fight in the 2024 elections is to build a “strong, cohesive Opposition front” as a “credible alternative”, in the absence of which, they say, the ruling alliance would be able to exploit any division of their votes to its electoral advantage.

State NCP chief Jayant Patil said, “MVA is a reality. We will put all efforts to win people’s trust and strengthen our electoral base in Maharashtra.”

Echoing similar sentiments, state Congress president Nana Patole said, “We just held an initial meeting. If we all work with the united purpose to defeat BJP, other issues will get resolved.”

Several state Congress leaders reckon that while both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will not compromise on their core ideological issue like secularism, they would also “not allow any power play to come in the way of a grand alliance, be at the Centre or the state, to fight the BJP”.

During the MVA regime, the Congress used to have a grouse about playing second fiddle to the Uddhav Sena and the NCP, with even its ministers then complaining that all policy decisions were taken by CM Uddhav and his deputy Ajit Pawar. The Karnataka results have however enthused the Congress, with Patole saying “Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has given a new lease of life to the Opposition, and he has alone fought Modi and Adani.”

Significantly, while Sharad Pawar and Uddhav remain the No. 1 leaders of their respective parties, the Congress does not have such a face in the state with Patole facing various challenges within the organisation.

Former Congress minister Vijay Waddetiwar has now questioned Patole’s decision to crack the whip against the party office bearers in the Chandrapur district unit, who are his supporters. Patole had earlier locked horns with senior state party leader Balasaheb Thorat when the latter’s nephew Satyajit Tambe, defying the party’s decision, contested the Nashik Graduate MLC seat as an Independent candidate and won.

A Congress insider however said, “Internal bickerings are part of any political organisation, but in Congress it gets public,” adding that “the NCP has its own share of problems which Pawar Senior resolves frequently”.

He said, “After Pawar announced his resignation (which he later withdrew) Jayant Patil had got upset over fear of being sidelined. The differences between Ajit Pawar and Jayant Patil over controlling the state NCP is no secret.” The Sena leadership’s inability to resolve their internal differences led to the vertical split in their party, he added.

The MVA however seems to be optimistic now about overriding their in-ternal differences. Balasaheb Thorat said, “There is no ambiguity about the MVA contesting together. We will sit together and work out our seat-sharing formula. I don’t see any problems.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by NCP leader Sunil Tatkare who said, “Each ally will have to take a step back for the larger interest of the state.”

Maharashtra accounts for 288 Assembly constituencies and 48 Lok Sabha seats. Since its formation in 1999, the NCP’s highest tally in the Assembly polls has been 71 seats in 2004. Since 1999, the Congress’s highest tally has been 82 Assembly seats in 2009. In the 2014 polls, when all four major parties – the Congress, NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena (undivided) – contested separately, the Congress got 42 seats, NCP 41, Sena 63 and the BJP 122. The 2019 polls saw a face-off between the Congress-NCP alliance and the BJP- Sena coalition, with the Congress winning 44 seats, NCP 54, BJP 105 and the Sena 56.

In both the 2014 and 2019 elections, the Narendra Modi factor played a key role in determining their outcome. However, no party or alliance has been able to touch the 200 mark in the state over the last 24 years.

In the run-up to the 2024 polls, the MVA is also looking to capitalise on perceived “public sympathy” for Uddhav due to the Sena split following the Shinde faction’s rebellion.

The Shinde-BJP dispensation has set an ambitious target of winning 200 of 288 seats in the 2024 polls, with Fadnavis claiming that “MVA unity is just a projection, it has internal cracks and is bound to fail”.