Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Hours after winning three seats, bickering among MVA partners
MUMBAI: A day after winning three out of five legislative council seats, the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) should have been celebrating its victory. Instead, the three parties in the coalition chose to indulge in bickering and one-upmanship.
The squabbling began with NCP leader Ajit Pawar sympathising with rebel Congressman Satyajeet Tambe—who has been expelled for six years for contesting the recent council elections as an independent—and advising the Congress to re-admit him into the party fold. He also spoke about the split in Shiv Sena.
“The whispers about the possibility of a rebellion in the Sena reached us a couple of times,” said Ajit at an event organised by a Marathi news channel. “We told Uddhav about this, and even Sharad Pawar telephoned him and met him to discuss it. But Uddhav said he had full faith in his MLAs. No effort was made to keep others united even after the rebellion by the first group of 15 or 16 MLAs. The blind faith by the leadership was destroyed by the rebel group.”
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant said it is the matter of past, and there is no point to discuss it today. He also said party president Uddhav
Thackeray had spoken over the issue in the past.
Ajit also spoke about Tambe’s contesting as an independent. “Pawar saheb had telephoned Mallikarjun Kharge at that time (before declaring the candidature) and told him that going by his experience, the party should select Satyajeet as its candidate,” he said. “I also am of the view that the Congress should not stretch the matter and Satyajeet should also forget whatever has happened and work as a Congress-supported legislator.”
The Congress was quick to express its disconcertion. “In the MVA government, the NCP was handling the home department. They could have stopped the MLAs who rebelled. Why was it not done then?” said Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole, adding, however, that this was not the appropriate time for a blame game. Hours later, the MVA leaders failed to reach a decision on contesting the assembly bypolls scheduled for February 27. “The Congress wants to contest from the Kasba Peth constituency whereas the NCP and Shiv Sena are both interested in the Chinchwad seat. The NCP also said that it has more strength than the Congress in the Kasba Peth constituency,” said a senior leader.
“We want to take other alliance partners into confidence, after which an announcement will be made on Saturday,” said Maharashtra NCP president Jayant Patil.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Subhash Desai said the parties had decided to contest the polls together. “Every party and its workers want to contest on every seat,” he said in response to claims on the Chinchwad seat. “But MVA’s victory is more important.”