Three political parties of the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance on Tuesday agreed on a seat-sharing plan for the 48 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra.
The INDIA bloc is a coalition of 28 Opposition parties that plans to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the general elections.
On Tuesday, leaders of the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) met in Delhi to discuss the seat-sharing agreement. The state-level alliance comprising the three parties is called the Maha Vikas Aghadi.
“I want to assure everyone that we will fight elections together,” Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut told reporters. “We have no differences about seat-sharing. We discussed in detail about each seat.”
While the INDIA bloc leaders did not provide details of how the seats will be divided among the allies, The Hindu reported that the Congress and Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction would contest 18 to 20 seats each and Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party faction may get 8 to 10 seats.
“There is no problem and Maharashtra will be the first state to announce seat-sharing,” Congress’ Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chenithala told the newspaper.
Raut also announced that the parties had decided to include Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi party in the Maha Vikas Aghadi.
In a separate meeting on Tuesday, leaders of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which is also part of the INDIA bloc, discussed their seat-sharing formula for Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, two other INDIA bloc members, the Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ruled out the possibility of contesting the general elections together in West Bengal, reported The Indian Express.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that her party has always fought against the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
“The terrorist party CPI(M) is helping the BJP,” Banerjee said at an event at Jaynagar in the South 24 Parganas district. “For 34 years, it has played with people’s minds and I will not have any understanding with it. Today they sit in front of the camera and talk. What did they do for 34 years?”
This comes after the Left party’s State Secretary Mohammed Salim accused the Trinamool Congress of having a political understanding with the BJP to protect its leaders from investigations by central agencies.
Earlier, the Congress had also expressed its disagreements over seat-sharing with the Trinamool Congress in the state.
“Mamata Banerjee does not want an alliance,” Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had told The Indian Express. “That is why she has let it known that she was willing to give two seats to the Congress. Her statements on alliance have no credibility. Had she been sincere, she should have expressed regret [about] the attacks that had been taking place on the Opposition [in West Bengal].”
Also read: Bharat Jodo 2.0 will avoid ally strongholds – but INDIA parties are still not happy with it
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