As MVA seat-sharing impasse continues, it is down to Sharad Pawar to break the deadlock

Ahead of the Sena (UBT) meeting on Sunday afternoon, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut claimed “some decisions needed to be taken”. “The meeting yesterday (Saturday) went on for over 10 hours. Today (Sunday), after speaking to Thackeray, we called an urgent meeting of our leaders. We may have to make certain decisions. We will go to Matoshree, discuss the issues and make a decision on how to go ahead,” Raut said.

The Congress decided to “wait and watch” the Sena (UBT)’s next move. “We want to finalise a few decisions and hence urged our leaders to remain in Delhi,” a Congress leader said even as another senior leader, who is a key negotiator, told The Indian Express that some of the Sena (UBT)’s demands were “unreasonable and difficult to accept”.

Sources said the marathon meeting on Saturday ended at 2 am but no conclusion was reached as the Sena (UBT) refused to relent on its demands and expressed interest in contesting more seats in Vidarbha while staking claim to seats seen as Congress strongholds. “How can we let go of seats like Warora, Dhamangaon Railway, Ramtek or Nagpur South? While we have a history of winning these seats, they do not have candidates here. The demands are unreasonable,” the Congress leader said.

As Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Legislative Council Ambadas Danve of the Sena (UBT) emphasised that the meeting at Matoshree was called to finalise the party’s campaign strategy and said issues, if any, “would be resolved soon”, party MLA and former minister Aaditya Thackeray, Uddhav’s son held an impromptu meeting with Pawar. However, he refused to divulge the contents of the meeting.

Later in the day, Raut and fellow party MP Anil Desai also met the NCP leader. Even as Desai said the MVA would hold a joint press conference on Monday, a senior Congress leader claimed that his party was not aware of any such event.

The Congress too seemingly “reached out” to Pawar with its MLA and former minister Naseem Khan saying, “It was a regular meeting. We want the MVA to stay firm and ensure we return to power. We are confident that all issues will be resolved soon. Discussions for building consensus on the remaining 10% of seats are in progress. Since Pawar is the architect of the MVA, we met him.”

Sources in the NCP(SP) said Pawar might intervene to iron out the differences between the two parties.

Last week, the MVA claimed to have reached a consensus on 260 of the 288 in Maharashtra. The remaining 28 emerged so contentious that the Sena (UBT) threatened to stay away from talks if Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole participated in them. “We are disappointed with the way Congress leaders in Maharashtra are handling seat sharing… If we do not get our act together, how will we win the election,” Raut had said and claimed he had spoken to Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Mukul Wasnik as well as its Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala over the issue.