Lack of agreement on 9 seats causes MVA to struggle to resolve disagreements

Though an agreement on nine Lok Sabha seats is still pending, the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition’s seat-sharing discussions are almost finished. Kolhapur, Sangli, Mumbai North West, Ramtek, Wardha, Bhiwandi, Yawatmal, Wasim, and Gondiya-Bhandara are among the seats that are in dispute.

According to a senior Congress politician, the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s seat-sharing formula is almost finalized, with 20 seats allotted to the Congress, 18 to the Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray, and 10 to the NCP under Sharad Pawar (SP). The Rashtriya Samaj Pak, headed by Mahadev Jankar, and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, led by Prakash Ambedkar, have been given one and four seats, respectively, and are now engaged in negotiations.

NCP chairman Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena head Uddhav Thackeray discuss the MVA’s “lazy attitude,” which is troubling. Prakash Ambedkar emails Kharge about the postponement of arrangements for seat-sharing.
While the Congress and Shiv Sena are ready to give Prakash Ambedkar four seats from their quota, the NCP (SP) is willing to give Mahadeo Jankar one seat, most likely the Madha Lok Sabha seat. But the seat-sharing news won’t be made public until after Rahul Gandhi’s planned Sunday rally in Mumbai.

In contrast, the Mahayuti coalition, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has a defined seat-sharing plan. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is vying for thirty seats, while DCM Ajit Pawar’s NCP is vying for seven seats, and CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena is vying for eleven seats. However, there are still six Lok Sabha seats that are up for debate: South Mumbai, Amravati, Osmanabad, Ratnagiri Sindhudurg, and Thane.