MUMBAI: A tiff broke out in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Friday on the issue of having a CM face for the assembly elections. While former CM Prithviraj Chavan of Congress said that there was a tradition in Maharashtra that the party in an alliance which wins more seats gets the CM’s post and the decision on who will be CM is taken by the top brass of that party, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut countered that the opposition needs a face.
While Raut said that he wasn’t declaring Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray as the CM face, he mentioned that Uddhav Thackeray had relentlessly raised his voice against PM Modi and BJP at the national level along with leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi. Raut also said that had Rahul Gandhi become the PM face of the INDIA bloc before the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress would have won more seats and the BJP would have been defeated in many seats which were lost by a thin margin.
Raut said people will get to know about the CM face of the MVA soon. “So both the opposition and ruling party need a face for the elections. The opposition parties need a face and in this state (Maharashtra) too, when the opposition has a face, they do well,” he added.
Declaring a CM face before the polls has become a contentious matter within the MVA. The Sena (UBT) is keen on projecting Uddhav as the CM face of the MVA, but the Congress and NCP (SP) don’t want to commit to any face and are instead suggesting that any decision on the CM should be taken after the poll results, and the party that gets the most seats should make this choice.
During his visit this week to New Delhi, where he met the Congress brass and several other top INDIA bloc functionaries, Uddhav hinted that he was open to being the CM face of the MVA if the partners agreed to endorse his name. For the record, though, Uddhav had skirted questions on whether he will be the CM face of the MVA in Maharashtra. “If my former colleagues (in the cabinet) are saying that I performed well as CM, then they only must say if they want me again (as CM). I’m not one to run away from any responsibilities so I took over as CM in 2019,” he had said.
In Delhi, Thackeray met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and other INDIA bloc netas.