New Delhi:
Maharashtra leader Uddhav Thackeray is in Delhi on a three-day visit, the highlight of which will be a strategy session with alliance partner Congress ahead of the assembly elections in the state. The meeting with Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders including Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, is due tomorrow. A few other INDIA bloc parties, including the Trinamool Congress, are also expected to meet later – their first since the Lok Sabha election.
Ahead of the meeting with Sena, Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi will have an internal meet tomorrow.
Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut, at whose house Mr Thackeray and his son, former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray, are staying, said, “Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi are in Delhi so the discussion will be held in Delhi. We want to bring a government in the state”.
The assembly election for Maharashtra’s 288 seats is due in October, in which the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena is hoping for a major comeback, powered by the results of the Lok Sabha election.
In 2019, the BJP – allied with the undivided Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray – won 23 of 25 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena contested the other 23 and won 18.
This time, the BJP won just nine seats. Its allies — the splinter units of the Sena led by Eknath Shinde and NCP led by Ajit Pawar — won eight of the 19 seats they contested.
The results were seen as the voters’ take on the massive political tumult that had overtaken the state since the 2019 state elections. Over the last two years, the matter has escalated, leading to back-t9o-back splits in the Shiv Sena and the NCP with the rebel factions in both groups joining hands with the BJP.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole has already expressed confidence that a change in the government is inevitable in the state.
To that end, tomorrow’s strategy session is expected to draw up a roadmap. The seat-sharing talks for the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi — comprising the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party — will be held in Mumbai, he has said.
