‘For the bigger picture Congress finds it important to accommodate and give space to other parties, and for that bigger picture it has stepped back a bit.’
The Congress rank and file in Maharashtra is seen to be unhappy over the grand old party’s approach towards the negotiations with Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena UBT, over the seat sharing deal.
Subsequently, the lesser number of seats for Congress than Shiv Sena UBT in the alliance has also lowered the morale of the Congress leaders. Furthermore, the worry Maharashtra leaders have is the Congress’s state leadership has shown incapacity and lack of intent to build the organisational momentum and enrich the street politics in the state.
“There are priorities clashing right now, NCP led by Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray is fighting for survival and Congress party is fighting to defeat the BJP.
So for bigger picture Congress finds it important to accommodate and give space to other parties and for that bigger picture we have stepped back a bit. Therefore by this a lot many people in Maharashtra Congress are unhappy in a way that Congress has not given proportionate importance to its own cadre,” said a senior spokesperson seeking anonymity.
The party has faced roadblock over three seats in Maharashtra where the Uddhav’s party had fielded its candidate without any coordination with the Congress. A senior leader said, “The alliance will remain. All three parties are aware that if they fight separately, they could lose many expected seats. For now, Shiv Sena would take the seat share as much as it took in 2019 or around 22 seats, Congress will take between 16 to 18 seats and NCP would take 8 to 10.”
Mumbai Congress Working President Charan Singh Sapra said, “The leaders who were involved in the process know better about what has happened and what were the arguments. Of course the winnability would have been the number one criteria. But there must be many other criteria.” The Sunday Guardian tried to contact the leaders involved in negotiations; however there was no response from them. A political analyst based in Maharashtra said, “The Congress seems to have been kind towards the Marathi regionalist Shiv Sena (led by Uddhav Thackeray). If the grand old party goes by the current strength, it is seen to be a strong entity after Shiv Sena led by Uddhav among its alliance partners.
But its national stature should have made it a big brother and therefore, there was a notion among the party rank and file that the party should grab this opportunity to expand its own base and strengthen its own camp rather than negotiating such a deal which will help other parties come back stronger.”
He added “But the alliance is at national level, and the national leadership knows the value of sacrifice well as they want to reduce jostling in the process of seat sharing to make the alliance as smooth as possible to create a front that could actually counter the BJP’s
gigantic election machinery.”