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Congress leaders said that there is an internal conflict going on between Congress and Shiv Sena. This conflict is about which party will contest more seats in the assembly elections.
Deepak Tue, 8 Oct 2024 05:19 AM share
Talks in the Mahavikas Aghadi alliance for the Maharashtra Assembly elections appear to be stuck. At the root of this is Congress’s demand for more seats. According to sources having knowledge of the matter, Congress is making this demand citing its good performance in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year. Here the main parties of Mahavikas Aghadi alliance are Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar). Two senior Congress leaders said that after the Lok Sabha elections, the mathematics of seat distribution among the three allies has changed. In Maharashtra, Congress contested 17 Lok Sabha seats and won 13. Whereas, NCP (SP) had won eight out of 10 seats and Shiv Sena (UBT) had won 9 out of 21 seats.
Congress leaders said that there is an internal conflict going on between Congress and Shiv Sena. This conflict is about which party will contest more seats in the assembly elections. Congress leaders, on condition of anonymity, said that our strike rate and tally is the best among the three allies. The distribution of seats is also important because it will also decide which party will hold the post of Chief Minister. There are a total of 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra and elections are going to be held here in November.
According to the Congress leader, the three allies are discussing the distribution of specific seats. During this time, special factors are also being kept in mind. According to the Congress leader, his party should get 115-120 seats. He said that it is clear from the Lok Sabha elections itself that the dominance of Shiv Sena (UBT) has reduced in Maharashtra. In such a situation, Shiv Sena workers cannot claim all the 56 seats won in 2019 because a large number of MLAs have also joined the Shinde faction.
However, there has been no response from Shiv Sena (UBT) in this matter. Party MP Sanjay Raut said that claims and counter-claims are going on on some seats. However, he expressed hope that things regarding seat sharing would be finalized before Dussehra. Let us tell you that in the 2019 assembly elections, undivided Shiv Sena had won 56 seats. Whereas, Congress had won 44 seats and undivided NCP had won 54 seats.
The Congress leader said that talks have still not taken place among the allies on the 23 seats which they had lost by a close margin in 2019. He said that Congress is ready to contest on all 23 seats, but NCP and Shiv Sena are also staking claim on some of these seats. According to people aware of the matter, till now the top leaders have kept distance from the discussion of seat sharing. Maharashtra President of Congress Nana Patole, Sanjay Raut of UBT and Jayant Patil of NCP-SP are talking. Last week, NCP (SP) leader Jitendra Awhad had said that the matter would be filed by MVA Dussehra.
