The Maha Vikas Aghadi Party is witnessing a struggle between its parties for the only winnable Rajya Sabha seat in Maharashtra. Days after the Shiv Sena claimed it had the “first right” to the seat, the Congress has now claimed it citing its status as a national party.
In view of this, senior leaders of MVA voters, including Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), met in Mumbai on Thursday to hold discussions on the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections and seat allocation in connection with it, news agency PTI reported.
Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray last week appeared to be staking his party’s claim to the only winnable seat for the MVA in the Rajya Sabha. However, after this Congress Legislature, party leader Vijay Wadettiwar suggested allocating the seat to Congress on the basis of it being a national party.
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The Rajya Sabha tenure of Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, party leader Fauzia Khan, Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi, RPI’s Ramdas Athawale, BJP’s Bhagwat Karad, Congress’s Rajani Patel and NCP’s Dhirshil Patel will end. The MVA is likely to send one candidate to the House due to its depleted strength, PTI reported.
What did Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders say?
Before Wadettiwar, Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal had last week staked his party’s claim to the seat, but stressed that a unified resolution was needed to effectively challenge the BJP.
Sapkal’s remarks came a day after Aaditya Thackeray’s. Rajya Sabha MP and Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut had then echoed similar thoughts, saying his party has the “first right” as the “largest party” to the MVA in the Assembly. “The Shiv Sena (UBT) is the single largest party in the opposition with 20 MLAs. Congress has 16, NCP (SP) has 10,” Raut stated.
But all parties confirmed that the decision will be made through dialogue. “The MVA will contest the elections united,” Wadettiwar said on Thursday, in line with what Sapkal said. “The candidate will be finalized only with the approval of the three parties,” Wadettiwar said.
