MUMBAI: Crucial meetings of the AICC’s central election and screening committees scheduled for Sunday were abruptly cancelled owing to a lack of consensus on MVA’s seat-sharing formula. These panels will meet in a day or two.
According to a Congress office-bearer, the party is prepared for any eventuality if there is no agreement on seat sharing. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut has echoed a similar sentiment, saying anything can happen in politics.
Seat sharing talks had resumed late on Saturday after AICC’s Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala met Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar to defuse the situation. Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray, along with Sena (UBT) MLC Anil Parab, too, met Pawar. Sena (UBT) functionaries said this meeting was to discuss the MVA manifesto, but political observers noted that the tiff over seats hasn’t been fully resolved, especially between Sena (UBT) and Congress. On Sunday, Uddhav also called for a meeting of party functionaries at Matoshree, the Thackerays’ residence, but no candidate list was declared by any MVA party.
Since no solution had been found when its committees’ members met on Sunday, AICC deployed former minister and CWC member Naseem Khan to meet Pawar to resolve the dispute. “I had a brief meeting with Sharad Pawar on the disputed seats. Since he is an architect of MVA, he spoke to both Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut. I am sure following the intervention of Sharad Pawar, the dispute will be resolved soon,” he told TOI.
Recently, Congress had reviewed all assembly seats and identified 288 nominees.
MVA constituents had met on seven occasions in recent times. All the meetings were attended by MPCC president Nana Patole, Raut and NCP (SP)’s Jayant Patil, but there was a lack of consensus owing to Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP)’s “unrealistic demands”.
“Their (Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP)) demands are unrealistic. They have demanded seats where their presence is almost zero,” a Congress functionary said.