Congress national leadership had summoned senior Maharashtra leaders for urgent confabulations to the national capital on Monday, a report by Quaid Najmi
After the embarrassment faced in the recent Haryana Assembly elections, the Congress top leadership has cautioned Maharashtra leaders against any kind of complacency or cockiness in the upcoming state Assembly elections, party sources said on Monday.
Congress President and Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha) Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition (Lok Sabha), besides AICC General Secretary K.C. Venugopal had summoned senior Maharashtra leaders for urgent confabulations to the national capital on Monday.
They included state party chief Nana F. Patole, Mumbai unit chief and MP Varsha Gaikwad, Leader of Opposition (Assembly) Vijay Wadettiwar, Congress Legislature Party Leader Balasaheb Thorat and ex-CM Prithviraj Chavan, and all returned to Mumbai this afternoon for the Congress Parliamentary Board meeting scheduled later on Monday.
Party sources here said that among the topics discussed were the Congress Manifesto and the combined pronouncement of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)-India block comprising Nationalist Congress Party (SP)-Shiv Sena (UBT) and other smaller allies.
Besides, the status of the seat-sharing formula among the big and small allies for the elections, the challenges posed by the ruling MahaYuti alliance, the pros and cons bedevilling both sides, etc, are also said to have figured in the tough deliberations held at Kharge’s home.
The discussions assume significance with the Election Commission of India (ECI) slated to sound the bugle for the polls to the 288-member Maharashtra assembly shortly.
Both Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have apparently conveyed in a no-nonsense manner to the state leaders on the need to remain united, cooperate with allies to vanquish the MahaYuti, shun airs of overconfidence and ensure victory, without citing Haryana where the Congress missed the opportunity to unseat BJP by a few close whiskers.
On its part, the state delegation apprised the Central leadership on the prevalent caste-community permutations and combinations, the impact of the Maratha-OBC upheavals on the polls, and the potential vote-divisions with multiple groupings likely to enter the fray.
The state law-and-order situation, the insecurities among minorities, the blatant killings of ex-Congress Minister and ruling ally Nationalist Congress Party’s Baba Ziauddin Siddique and earlier SS-UBT leader Abhishek Ghosalkar during a Facebook Live interaction, plus other incidents that have shaken the people of the state cropped up.
In 2024, Maharashtra is stepping into 15th Assembly polls after a tumultuous five-year tenure that witnessed the break-down of two major parties – Shiv Sena and Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party and NCP (SP).
There were unprecedented three CMs in the state, comprising an 80-hour-long two-man regime of CM Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, followed by MVA’s CM Uddhav Thackeray with Ajit Pawar as Deputy CM, then the toppling game of June 2022 that saw CM Eknath Shinde with Deputy CM Fadnavis and a year later even Ajit Pawar as the Deputy CM for a record 6th time.
After a decent performance in the Lok Sabha polls when it bagged a total of 31 (of 48) seats, the MVA has been exuding supreme confidence of a repeat show in the Assembly polls.
The elections would see a multitude of parties in the fray – the three main allies each of the MahaYuti and MVA plus their smaller partners, the upcoming groupings of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) led by Prakash Ambedkar, the Marathas contemplating to enter the contests and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena of Raj Thackeray.
Besides, there will be other smaller parties in some local pockets, not to mention potential rebels from all parties, the host of independents and others who are likely to crowd the poll scene, and serve to split votes.
Left & progressive parties seek ‘inclusivity’
In the wake of the Haryana results, prominent Left and progressive parties have called upon the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to adopt an ‘inclusive’ approach to seat-sharing along with pro-people policies ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
In a run-up to the polls, the progressive parties held a meeting in Mumbai and will now have a grand state-level convention in Nashik on October 16, to be attended by thousands of activists from across the state, said CPI (M) leader Ashok Dhawale.
He said that the Nashik Convention will remind the MVA that although it bagged 31 out of the 48 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Maharashtra, the difference in voting percentage between the MVA and NDA was wafer-thin – barely 0.4 per cent.
“While the MVA bagged 44 per cent of the vote share with the broad support of all the anti-RSS-Bharatiya Janata Party forces, the NDA secured 43.6 per cent. This means that the MVA needs to take some drastic inclusive and comprehensive measures to ensure Maharashtra doesn’t end up the Haryana way,” warned Dhawale.
This would necessitate the MVA-INDIA bloc to announce alternative pro-masses policies and include all the progressive parties in the seat-sharing arrangements if it hopes to defeat the ruling MahaYuti alliance.
For this purpose, the progressive parties shall conduct negotiations with the MVA and ensure that they are given a suitable share of the 288 seats in the state Assembly, and the opposition bloc emerges stronger after the polls.
They include Samajwadi state President Abu Asim Azmi, Peasants and Workers Party President Jayant Patil, CPI chief Bhalchandra Kango and CPI(M)’s Dhawale.
The group of progressive parties, including many which are with the opposition alliance in the state and the centre, comprise CPI, CPI(M), PWP, SP and Satyashodhak Community Party.
It may be recalled that in the LS polls, the MVA allies Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (SP)-Shiv Sena (UBT) had contested all the seats with the quiet support of the progressive parties which were not allotted a single seat to fight.
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