NEW DELHI: Internal surveys suggest that Congress could win most seats in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, which can work to their advantage in negotiating for seat sharing.
As the three major parties, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar NCP(SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), continue their hard bargaining over seats, the grand old party seems to hold an edge in negotiations in Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance as the multiple internal surveys suggest Congress could pocket most seats in Maharashtra Assembly elections. The state has 288 seats. According to the assessment based on different internal surveys, a party insider privy to the developments said, Congress party could win more than 80 seats followed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with more than 70 seats. Notably, Shiv Sena (UBT) may not be able to perform as well as the last elections where it won 56 Assembly seats.
A party insider said, “It is difficult for the Shiv Sena (UBT) to win more than 45 seats this time.”
However, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Yuvraj Mohite said, “Yes, the reports maybe in favour of Congress. But we may not seek more seats based on reports. The Lok Sabha elections showed us the mandate of the people. We came to know about the impact Rahul Gandhi had created on ground and surprisingly, we won the most number of Lok Sabha seats in the Maharashtra. We were front runners on more than 80 Assembly seats. The people trusted us which transferred into votes. Now the people want that the experience of the Congress gets utilised. In Maharashtra, it is MVA and we are negotiating based on whosoever has got the mandate, this is how we will divide seats.”
A senior Congress leader said that the top leaders in MVA have already decided that the seats won by alliance partners in the 2019 Assembly elections will be retained by respective parties, while the negotiations can go in for the remaining seats.
A Congress leader said, “The numbers the three parties got in the last Assembly elections sum up to 154 Assembly seats, in which Congress secured 44, NCP won 54 and the rest were won by the undivided Shiv Sena. Now the negotiations are going on for the remaining 134 seats. In these remaining seats, Congress is demanding around 50% of seats amounting to more than 65 Assembly seats.”
According to a Shiv Sena office bearer, Uddhav Thackeray had stipulated his wish to be considered as a chief ministerial face. However, NCP and Congress leadership had declined that proposal and said that the chief minister will only be decided after the results are out.
A political analyst siad, “Uddhav thinks that if he fails to secure respectable number of seats, his party will lose trust of the rank and file, weakening his cadre. He also thinks that if he doesn’t become the chief minister, BJP will slowly take up his space as it has become a bigger Hindutva force.”
Experts think that Congress is playing a calculated game in Maharashtra this time as they know that fielding their own chief minister if the alliance comes into power, will give them access to deeper pockets and also give stability to the grand old party at the centre and therefore, they would not like to cede what is their this time.
On the other side, a senior BJP leader in Maharashtra said, “BJP has a different approach in Maharashtra, they are more accommodative with alliance partners. Going by the numbers they got in the last Assembly elections, they have the mandate to run the state but they gave the chief ministerial position to a leader in Shiv Sena faction. Now, the same parties think if they get less numbers in seat sharing arrangement, they won’t be able to survive and therefore, they are making claims for more seats. BJP has a powerful cadre and leadership, they naturally deserve more than double seats than their partners but they will try to make all the partners comfortable and contest the elections together with NCP led by Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde.”