MVA intensifies seat-sharing talks in Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: Maha Vikas Aghadi strategises for Maharashtra Assembly elections, focusing on seat sharing amid recent Lok Sabha successes and BJP’s decline.

Ahead of the high voltage Assembly elections in Maharashtra, the main opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising of Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) have already started key talks on the issues including on the division of constituencies for seat sharing. On Wednesday, the alliance had a day-long meeting and discussed these issues which lasted till late night and sources have confirmed that the meeting would continue for the next few days and soon, the alliance would come out with a complete picture on the seat sharing formula. Party sources in the MVA emphasise that the entire seat sharing formula and the other things that are needed to run a ‘friendly’ coalition would be completed within a week.

In the last Assembly election, in 2019, BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena (undivided) won 56 seats, NCP (undivided) won 54 seats, and Congress won 44 seats. Sources confirmed that the MVA alliance is likely to contest on the same seats (154 seats) as they had contested back in 2019 to balance the electoral arithmetic while the ongoing talks are focusing on the remaining 134 seats.

Clyde Crasto, National Spokesperson of the NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), said, “The results of the recently held Lok Sabha elections had given the clear mandate to the MVA. People know who the real NCP and Shiv Sena is. Our alliance is going very strong and the opposition is trying its best to create ruckus, but the Lok Sabha mandate says everything.” Similarly, a political analyst based in Maharashtra said that while the Congress earlier remained a weak political force, in the last few months, it has emerged as a leading figure in the MVA. There are apprehensions that Congress, after bagging 13 seats out of 48 in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, could bargain for nearly a 100 seats, he added.

In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the results in Maharashtra gave a surprising shock to the ruling Mahayuti alliance.  BJP managed to win only 10 seats, a sharp decline from the 23 seats it had won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Similarly, Eknath Shinde’s faction of Shiv Sena won on seven seats, while another ally, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, won only one seat. On the other hand, MVA secured a major victory as Congress secured victory in 13 seats, while Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP got nine and eight seats, respectively.