New Delhi: The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has finalised a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. Under the deal, Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP will contest on 85 seats each in the polls.
After a marathon meeting, Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole said, “We’ve decided that Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) and Shiv Sena (UBT) will contest on 85 seats each and on remaining 18 seats, we will have talks with our alliance parties, including Samajwadi Party, and by Thursday, decision on them will be made.” He added, “We are contesting the elections as Maha Vikas Aghadi and we are confident that we will form the government.”
The Shiv Sena (UBT) released a name of 65 candidates on Wednesday evening, announcing that the seat-sharing pact for Maharashtra has been finalised. It took a slew of meetings and discussions to come to a consensus on the deal.
After striking the deal, the Shiv Sena (UBT) said that each of the three key allies in the MVA – the Sena UBT, Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchadra Pawar) — will contest 85 seats each.
The elections to 288-member Maharashtra assembly will be held on November 20. Counting of votes will be carried out on November 23. The term of the current assembly ends on November 26.
