File photo of Maharashtra Congress Speaker Nana Patole | Photo credit: Emmanual Yogini
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) has set up leadership committees in Maharashtra and Mumbai and has begun negotiations with the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of the Congress Party (Sharatchandra Pawar) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).
Seat-sharing negotiations for the upcoming state assembly elections are pending between the three parties that make up the opposition alliance in Maharashtra. The term of the state assembly ends on November 26, 2024, so the elections are likely to be held in October or November.
The Maharashtra state committee includes state unit chief Nana Patole, Legislative Party leader Balasaheb Thorat, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar, former state chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, Nitin Raut, Arif Naseem Khan and Sathey (Bunty) Patil.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai Committee comprises three members – Mumbai Regional Congress Committee Chairperson and newly elected MP Varsha Gaikwad, Ashok Jagtap and MP Aslam Shaikh.
In the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the main parties in the pre-election coalition were the Indian National Congress and the United NCP. The Indian National Congress contested 145 seats and won 44, while the NCP fielded 123 candidates and won 54. Other parties that supported the larger national United Progressive Alliance (UPA) included the Samajwadi Party, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, Indian Peasant and Workers’ Party, and Bahujan Vikas Aghadi.
After the elections, the United Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party parted ways, and the Shiv Sena allied with the Indian National Congress and the Indian National Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government, which eventually formed the government in Maharashtra, with United Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray as the state’s chief minister.
