LS polls: As allies spar over seats, INDIA alliance hangs by a thread in Maharashtra

With weeks to go before the first phase of polling in the Lok Sabha elections, the INDIA bloc continues to face turbulence in its seat-sharing negotiations. While the Opposition group’s largest constituent, the Congress party, was still negotiating its share of seats in Bihar with Lalu and Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD, its alliance with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) and Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aagadhi (VBA) on Wednesday (March 27) ran into choppy waters in Maharashtra.

Unhappy with the delay in finalising a seat-sharing arrangement for Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, Ambedkar made it clear that he was walking out of the INDIA bloc as his VBA declared candidates for eight constituencies, including those for which the Congress, Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP had already declared its nominees.

The VBA’s decision comes within days of Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr BR Ambedkar, writing to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge extending the Aaghadi’s “complete ground and strategic support” to Congress candidates on seven constituencies of the state. In the same letter, Ambedkar had also asserted that he had “lost faith” in the Sena and NCP of Thackeray and Pawar, respectively, as the two parties had “refused to listen to VBA representatives”.

VBA bolts from INDIA stable

Having now walked out of the alliance, Ambedkar told The Federal that his “offer of support to the Congress on any of the seven seats it is contesting still stands” and that he had already declared the VBA’s support for Congress candidates Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj in Kolhapur and Vikas Thakare from Nagpur.

Ambedkar, who will be contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Akola, which he had last won in 1999, said it made “no sense” for the VBA to be part of the Congress, Sena and NCP’s Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance as “elections are weeks away and there is no clarity yet on their seat-sharing formula; Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena and Pawar’s NCP were not serious... we couldn’t wait indefinitely for them”.

While the VBA exited from the alliance, signs of unease and mistrust among the remaining MVA partners too came to the fore as Thackeray’s Sena declared candidates for 16 constituencies of Maharashtra, including Sangli and several constituencies in Mumbai for which the Congress and Pawar’s NCP had staked claim during the seat-sharing talks.

Thackeray makes arbitrary move

Thackeray’s announcement triggered immediate objections and even street protests against his Sena by members of the Congress and the NCP (SCP). Upset with the Sena declaring the candidature of Amol Kirtikar, son of veteran Sena leader Gajanan Kirtikar, from the Mumbai North West seat, former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam, who had been lobbying for a ticket from this constituency, implored his party high command to “break the alliance” with Thackeray.

Nirupam alleged that the Sena had declared Kirtikar’s candidature without any consensus on the seat-sharing formula between INDIA partners and that Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat who was part of the negotiations with the Sena and NCP too was “kept in the dark”. Nirupam had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha polls against Amol’s father, Gajanan Kirtikar (the undivided Shiv Sena was then in alliance with the BJP).

The Congress leader hurled a series of allegations at the Sena candidate, claiming that he was involved in siphoning off funds meant for providing food to stranded people during the COVID pandemic. Notably, he was served a notice by the Enforcement Directorate over his alleged role in the “khichdi scam” shortly after Thackeray’s faction of the Sena declared him as its candidate.

Asserting that the Congress was “making a blunder” by allowing the Sena to field a “khichdi chor”, Nirupam, who had started his political career with the Shiv Sena but quit the party to join the Congress in 2005, claimed that if the Sena was allowed to field candidates on all seats declared by Thackeray on Wednesday, “the Congress will be completely destroyed in Maharashtra”.

While Nirupam’s unease over the Sena’s announcement of candidates may be branded as motivated since the party has chosen to field a candidate from a seat he was lobbying for, other Congress and NCP leaders from the state also told The Federal that Thackeray’s move was “arbitrary” and “not in tune with the spirit of the alliance”. Sources said talks among the allies had remained “inconclusive” on who among them would contest the Bhiwandi, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North Central, and Sangli seats and that it had been decided that “none of the partners would announce their candidate for any of these seats without consensus”.

Tussle over Sangli

“We were still ironing out the seat-sharing formula. There were four or five seats on which we still had to evolve a consensus because more than one MVA party was staking claim on these. It came as a surprise for all of us that he (Thackeray) has already declared the Sena’s list and put up candidates even for seats on which we were still talking. The Sangli seat is non-negotiable for us because all our surveys show our candidate (the Congress wants to field Vishal Patil from Sangli) is the only won with the potential to win there but the Sena has declared Chandrahar Patil from Sangli. This is not acceptable. We will speak to Uddhav Thackeray and try to resolve this today itself,” Thorat told The Federal.

Sources in the Sena said the party may climb down or offer a “friendly contest with the Congress or NCP candidate” on a few seats but asserted that “withdrawing our claim on constituencies that the Sena had won in 2019 is out of the question”. A senior Sena leader told The Federal that surveys conducted by the party had indicated a “huge wave of support and sympathy for Uddhav Thackeray” due to the manner in which he was “betrayed by Eknath Shinde” and his government was “toppled by the BJP” and that “not just our Sena but our allies will also benefit from this sentiment on the ground but it is obvious that we would want to capitalise on it by contesting as many seats as possible”.

Pawar loyalists hit streets

The Sena’s decision to field former NCP leader Sanjay Dina Patil from the Mumbai North East constituency has also not gone down well with a section of Pawar’s party. Patil, who had won the Mumbai North East seat as a NCP candidate in 2019, had switched to the Shiv Sena ahead of the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls when the Sena was still an ally of the BJP. An influential section of Pawar’s NCP continues to see Patil’s switch as a “betrayal of Sharad Pawar’s trust” even though he now finds himself as a candidate of Thackeray’s Sena that is now Pawar’s ally. Sources said though Pawar was “not averse” to giving the Mumbai North East seat to Thackeray’s party under the seat-sharing formula, Patil’s candidature had riled several Pawar loyalists who, soon after Thackeray declared the candidates, staged protests in the constituency against the Sena candidate.

Sources told The Federal that Congress leaders from Maharashtra have implored the party high command to “step in immediately” and convince Thackeray to “stop violating coalition dharma” while reiterating their demand to “not concede the Bhiwandi, Sangli, Mumbai North West and Mumbai North Central to the Sena at any cost”. Congress leaders also said that the party may also reach out to Ambedkar and request him to “honour his promise of supporting our candidates in seats where the VBA has influence even if he refuses to reconsider his stand on quitting the INDIA bloc”.