Today in Politics: Pawar, Uddhav to attend crucial MVA meeting on ending seat-sharing impasse

One of the reasons why things got stuck, as Alok Deshpande reported, was that state Congress president Nana Patole was pushing for 125 seats while the Sena (UBT) wanted 100 seats each for it and the Congress and 88 for the NCP (SP). The Sena’s insistence on some seats in Vidarbha, where the Congress has a strong presence, was also said to have become a hurdle. But with Pawar working behind the scenes, the state Congress appeared more conciliatory on Monday and deployed senior leader Balasaheb Thorat to negotiate with Thackeray and the NCP (SP) chief instead of Patole.

The contours of the deal will be among the day’s top political stories and it will be interesting to see if the Congress ends up getting the best deal for itself, months after it emerged as the best-performing party in the Lok Sabha elections, driving the MVA up to 30 parliamentary constituencies.

Things are progressing fast for the Opposition party in Jharkhand too, days after differences crept up over seats. The party named 21 candidates late on Monday night, with 18 candidates repeated. The discord between the Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) was over seats to be allocated to smaller ally Rashtriya Janata Dal and from whose share those tickets would be given.

As Abhishek Angad reported, of the 70 seats on which there is consensus as of now, 41 are with the JMM and 29 with the Congress. In an interview with Manoj CG, Jammu and Kashmir Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir who is overseeing the party’s affairs, the final deal may end up looking somewhat like this: 42 for JMM, 30 for Congress, five to six for the RJD, and the rest for the CPI(ML). The final picture is expected to be clear by Tuesday afternoon.

Recommended reading: Maharashtra polls poised between the H (Haryana), M (Maratha) and P (Pawar Sr) factors

Also happening today:

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Kazan, Russia, for two days starting Tuesday for the BRICS Summit
2. Union Home Minister Amit Shah is in Gujarat, his home state. He will address a gathering in Anand in the morning to mark the diamond jubilee celebration of the National Dairy Development Board and the birth anniversary of Tribhuvandas Patel, the father of India’s cooperative movement. Around 2 pm, Shah will address the Gujarat Assembly, inaugurate a party office in Gandhinagar, and then inaugurate the 14th National Conference of Civil Defence and Home Guards.