Even on the last day of filing nominations for the Maharashtra state assembly elections, neither Mahayuti nor Maha Vikas Agadi wasn’t able to decide on the final seat-sharing formula. As per local news channels by 4.00 pm on Tuesday, 29th October, Mahayuti filed 287 nominations across Maharashtra, and MVA fielded 285 nominations.
The party superiority amongst these alliances is closely gripping as Congress lost its stature at 102 seats in the state, with the Sharad Pawar faction with 87 seats and the Uddhav Thackeray faction with more than 80 seats.
While in Mahayuti, the Bharatiya Janata Party plays the bigger role with more than 140 nominations in the state, this includes four smaller parties as well. Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde has filed nominations for 80 seats yet and NCP on 53 seats.
The final seat-sharing formula will be known only after the nomination process ends on 29th October.
However, while the parties were fighting amongst themselves to decide who was superior, the smaller political parties seemed to be ignored.
Several leaders including Samajwadi Party’s Abu Azmi and RPI (A) Ramdas Athavale shared their displeasure about the issue.
Abu Azmi’s Warning To MVA
On 27th October, just a day before final nominations in Maharashtra, Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi said that they were waiting for the final response from Maha Vikas Agadi about seat-sharing as they didn’t want the secular votes to be divided.
Taking to X he said, “Samajwadi Party does not want the secular votes to be divided in Maharashtra. SP is still waiting for the response of Maha Vikas Agadi.”
He further said that Akhilesh Yadav has expressed the will to fight the elections with the alliance, although if the alliance doesn’t wish to keep SP with it, then the party will fight the elections from where its organization is strong.
MVA has already allotted about five seats to the Samajwadi Party raising it from the previous two. However, several reports suggest that the Samajwadi Party had demanded seven more seats, or else they would file from 20-25 constituencies.
Athavale Unhappy After Meeting Fadnavis
Union Minister Ramdas Athawale, chief of the Republican Party of India expressed his dissatisfaction over the seat-sharing formula within Mahayuti. In his met with Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, he said that his party is not getting any seats for the state assembly elections.
On 27th October, he posted on X stating that the republican activists are unhappy with the seat distribution. He wrote, “Met deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today in Mumbai and discussed about seat distribution. Republican Party is the leading party in the state and the Republican activists said that they are unhappy about the seat distribution.”
The RPI expected 12 seats in the alliance, however, till now the party has been given two seats from Mumbai. It has also been said that, after the alliance comes into power, RPI will receive one cabinet minister post, four development corporation presidency (Mahamandals), and Zilla Parishad member posts.
How this plays with RPI workers will be seen during the results of Maharashtra state assembly results.
