MVA seals poll pact in Maha for LS elections
MUMBAI: The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing formula for the Lok Sabha polls with the Shiv Sena (UBT) getting the major chunk of 21 seats, while the Congress will contest 17 and the NCP (SP) 10 seats.
The Congress gave up its claim on the contentious Sangli and Bhiwandi seats, which will now be contested by the Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP), respectively. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar said there are no differences among the allies over any seat and the distribution arrangement for the 48 parliamentary seats in the state has been arrived at unanimously.
While Shiv Sena (UBT) head Uddhav Thackeray said the larger goal of the alliance was to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), state Congress president Nana Patole said it has decided to be “large-hearted” to achieve this objective.
Pawar, Thackeray and Patole announced the poll pact after weeks of hectic negotiations.
Addressing a press conference at ‘Shivalaya’, the Shiv Sena (UBT) office in south Mumbai, former state chief minister Thackeray said the seat-sharing deal has been reached and that in an alliance, winning is important and defeating the BJP is the goal.
“When victory against the BJP is the larger goal, we have to set aside certain differences,” he said when asked about the Shiv Sena (UBT) refusing to give Sangli seat to the Congress.
Thackeray said there was a strange coincidence of “surya grahan” (solar eclipse), “amavasya” (new moon) and the BJP rally on the same day (Monday).
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech yesterday was not
agency was able to make out a case of Kejriwal’s involvement in the offence of money laundering.
ED, which said the probe against Kejriwal was at a nascent stage, referred to Kejriwal’s argument that his arrest was politically motivated. “Take the case of a terrorist who is also a politician. He blows up an army vehicle and says I want to contest elections so you can’t touch me? What kind of argument is this?” asked additional solicitor general SV Raju, who appeared for ED.
Singhvi objected to the analogy even as Raju said that Kejriwal was arrested because he was responsible for the affairs of AAP, which benefited from the money laundering. “Forget his role. The role is not required to be looked at. What is required to be looked at is that he was responsible for the affairs of the party.”
On March 23, Kejriwal approached the high court claiming his arrest violated his fundamental rights. The court on March 27 only issued notice on his plea, emphasising the need for a response from ED to address the legal and validity issues raised.
In his affidavit submitted to the high court, ED opposed Kejriwal’s petition citing his statements to a trial court — that he had no objection to a further extension of his remand.
ED has accused Kejriwal of being the “kingpin and key conspirator” of the Delhi excise policy scam, who acted in cahoots with ministers of his cabinet and other AAP leaders while seeking to implicate the party as the beneficiary of the alleged crime in the form of a “company”.