The seat-sharing talks between the allies of the Maha Vikas Aghadi on Thursday remained logjammed on the allocation of 28 seats. Though MVA sources claim its alliance partners have reached a consensus on 260 seats. Another round of talks will take place to resolve the impasse.
The seats where the MVA partners could not come to a conclusion include Ramtek, Chandrapur, Tumsar, Daryapur, Arjuni-Morgaon (all from Vidarbha), Sindkheda (north Maharashtra), and Parli, Gevrai, and Udgir (all from Marathwada).
The discussion over 4 or 5 seats in Mumbai could not take place due to the absence of leaders from the city, sources said. In total, the MVA discussion went on for over nine hours at a five-star hotel in the BandraKurla Complex.
Those participating included MPCC chief Nana Patole, his colleagues from the party Balasaheb Thorat, Vijav Wadettiwar, and Satej Patl, NCP SP state chief Jayant Patil and his colleagues Anil Deshmukh, Jitendra Awhad, and Rajesh Tope and Shiv Sena MPs Sanjay Raut and Anil Desai.
Deliberations could not be concluded due to differences between Congress and Shiv Sena leaders, sources said. Now, for seats where consensus has not been reached, discussions will be held with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray and NCP leader Sharad Pawar to find a solution.
There was no discussion about any seats in Mumbai during this meeting because the committee responsible for discussing Mumbai was not present. Speaking to the media, former minister and NCP (SP) leader Anil Deshmukh mentioned that “discussions are still pending on 10 percent of the seats.
There will be another meeting today to finalise the seat distribution.” There was also discontent on the part of Abu Azmi, but reportedly, this was quieted by allocating him the Govandi and Bhiwandi seats. The Congress wants to contest 110-120 seats while the Shiv Sena (UBT) is aiming for 90-100, and NCP (SP) is looking at 80 seats. It was expected that the MVAS first candidate list would be announced on October 18.
However, Congress state president Nana Patole stated that complete seat distribution would be finalised by October 18-19. This means that the Maha Vikas Aghadi will definitely miss the October 18 deadline for releasing the first list. The main disagreements are on Mumbai and Vidarbha, which together account for 98 of the total 288 seats.
Both the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) have strong interests in these regions and are reluctant to compromise. In Mumbuai, the fight over key seats is not just about local politics but also reflects the changing dynamics after the Congress’s unexpected loss to the BJP in Haryana’s recent elections.
The deadlock is over eight crucial seats in Mumbai, including Byculla, Versova, Dharavi, Jogeshwari rast, and others. Joint press conference: “We have addressed problems such as faults and missing names from the voter list. We will take up these issues before the Election Commission at llam am on Friday. Later, we will address a joint press around 12pm.”
