The Maha Vikas Aghadi has convened a meeting at the YB Chavan Centre in Mumbai, which will be attended by leaders of the NCP-SCP, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress. Amid reports of a rift in the alliance, the leaders are likely to hold a press conference after the meeting.
According to a report by India Today, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Sharad Pawar and Indian National Congress state president Nana Patole are scheduled to address the media as they prepare for the Legislative Council elections for four seats later this month and the Legislative Assembly elections later this year.
After the Lok Sabha elections saw the BJP emerge as the largest party in Maharashtra by winning 13 seats, Patole had insisted that it would contest 150 seats in the state assembly elections, but the central leadership subsequently asked the state government not to provoke its allies.
Similarly, Uddhav Thackeray announced his candidates for all four seats in the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections for the Teachers and Graduates constituency without consulting his MVA allies.
However, the issue was resolved with the mediation of Sharad Pawar. As per the seat-sharing agreement finalised by the two Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituencies, the Shiv Sena (UBT) will contest in the Mumbai Graduates, Mumbai Teachers and Nashik Teachers constituencies, while the Nationalist Congress Party will contest in the Konkan Graduates constituency, from which Kishore Jain of Thackeray’s party has been asked to withdraw.
Assembly elections for two seats each from Graduates’ Constituency (Mumbai and Konkan) and Teachers’ Constituency (Mumbai and Nashik) will be held on June 26. The results will be declared on July 1.
The MVA alliance performed impressively in the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections, winning 31 of the 48 seats. The Indian National Congress won the highest number of seats with 13, while the Shiv Sena won nine and the NCP (SP) eight.
