Maha Congress chief Nana Patole says seat sharing should be on the basis of merit

With the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls due next year, state Congress president Nana Patole has said stress will be laid on the allotment of seats according to the merit of candidates. The Congress is determined to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the allocation of seats will be decided keeping the same objective in mind, Patole told reporters on Tuesday.

His party is a constituent of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) which also comprises the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena (UBT). “A detailed discussion was held in an extended executive meeting of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee in view of the forthcoming elections to the Vidhan Sabha and the Lok Sabha. While fighting together as Maha Vikas Aghadi, emphasis will be laid on the allotment of seats according to merit. Each seat will be studied thoroughly before discussing seat-sharing,” Patole said.

He said the MVA is determined to bring down the "arbitrary and tyrannical" government of the BJP. "The situation in 2014, 2019 and now is different. The Congress will review each seat in the first week of June and take a decision," Patole said. "Maharashtra is a state of Congress ideology. The Congress has increased its base in Vidarbha too. In the last three years, we have had big wins in all the elections, defeating the BJP. Seats will be allocated considering all these things,” he said.

Notably, NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Tuesday said the Lok Sabha constituencies won by the BJP in Maharashtra would be discussed first in the seat-sharing talks of theMVA partners. The MVA will "hundred percent" contest the next year's Lok Sabha elections together, he told reporters here.

The BJP won 23 of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in 2019, followed by its then alliance partner Shiv Sena which had bagged 18. “There is no formula for seat-sharing. Uddhav Thackeray had expressed the desire to keep the seats his party had won. But there was no further discussion on it. Leaders of the three parties (for conducting the talks) will be nominated,” Pawar said.