Mahavikas Aghadi MVA has announced candidates for 274 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, with 105 from Congress, 87 from Shiv Sena UBT, and 82 from Nationalist Congress Party led by Sharad Pawar. There are still 14 seats in deadlock within the MVA for the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly. Today marks the final day for the nomination of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections.
Even though today is the final day for nominations, it remains uncertain how many seats the three parties in the alliance will compete for. The dispute in the MVA over ticket distribution post the assembly election announcement appears to still be ongoing. BJP must emerge victorious in the election, no matter the obstacles posed by Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) and Ajit Pawar.
All members of the MVA seem united, but they are still unable to come to a satisfactory understanding regarding seats. Even after receiving multiple ultimatums from the state unit of the Samajwadi Party, the allocation of their seats in the alliance has not been finalized.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections will take place on November 20 in a single phase, however none of the three parties have started making concrete preparations for a joint election campaign in the state. All three parties appear to be focusing heavily on the seat sharing agreement, with the Mahayuti of Maharashtra led by the BJP planning 10 to 12 major rallies featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In addition, plans for major BJP and NDA leaders are also being finalized for Maharashtra.
As of now, the top leaders of the largest party within the Aghadi coalition, Congress, have not planned any events for Maharashtra. A significant gathering took place at the residence of Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge, with Rahul Gandhi and Nana Patole in attendance, where discussions were held on various topics such as the Maharashtra assembly election campaign, leaders’ schedules, issues, and manifesto. Despite this, the election campaign agenda is still not finished. It is believed that the delay is due to the extra time needed to settle the disagreement among the member parties regarding seats.
The Maharashtra unit of the Congress party has stated that the election schedules for Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge will be finalized for the state assembly elections post Diwali, by which time all disagreements, including seat allocation, will have been resolved. Sources say Rahul Gandhi may kick off his election campaign in Nagpur.
Nevertheless, talks for potential joint rallies involving Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sharad Pawar, and Uddhav Thackeray are in the preliminary stages. Balasaheb Thorat, a senior Maharashtra Congress leader, has also discussed this matter with Pawar and Thackeray. The final decision is still pending, but there are plans for four to five joint rallies in different regions of the state, depending on the leaders’ schedules.