Pawar bats for MVA allies to fight Lok Sabha, Maharashtra polls together
NCP chief backs Uddhav Thackeray, says majority of Shiv Sainiks working on ground with him
With Lok Sabha elections and Maharashtra Assembly polls due next year, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar on Sunday pitched for contesting them together with the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Congress under the banner of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
Talking to reporters in Kolhapur, Pawar claimed that a majority of Shiv Sainiks, who work on the ground, are fully backing Uddhav faction. “Many of Shiv Sena MPs and MLAs may have aligned with the Eknath Shinde faction, but they will know the ground reality once the elections take place,” he added. The Lok Sabha polls are due in May 2024 and the Maharashtra Assembly elections are due in October 2024.
Replying to a media query on the issue of alliance, Pawar said, “The understanding is that the Congress, the NCP and the Uddhav faction of Shiv Sena should work together (for the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra polls). The Republican Party and some groups should be included. But, we are having discussions. We take decisions jointly on many issues, so there should not be any problem in this.”
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After the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, Thackeray had snapped ties with its old ally BJP and stitched a new alliance with the NCP and the Congress to form the MVA government in the state. The Thackeray government collapsed in June last year after a revolt led by Shinde against the Sena leadership.
Legal intervention
About the ongoing border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka, Pawar said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had convened a meeting with different parties. The case should be strongly presented before court by roping in top legal experts of the country, he added.
The border dispute is currently pending before the Supreme Court. The issue dates back to 1957 after the reorganisation of States on linguistic lines. Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, as it has a sizeable Marathi-speaking population. It also laid claim to over 800 Marathi-speaking villages, which are currently part of Karnataka.
Karnataka maintains the demarcation done on linguistic lines as per the States Reorganisation Act and the 1967 Mahajan Commission Report as final.
(With agency inputs)
