The MVA, comprising Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), held a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Worli on Wednesday to discuss seatsharing for the Lok Sabha election. The three allies also invited the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) for the talks.
MVA constituents holding negotiations for past several days
The MVA constituents have been holding negotiations for the past several days to reach a consensus on seat-sharing. Ahead of the MVA meeting here, senior Congress leader and former minister Balasaheb Thorat separately met Ambedkar. Ambedkar has already announced his candidates for Sangli and Wardha constituencies, which the Congress generally contests.
Although the VBA failed to win even a single Lok Sabha or assembly seat in the 2019 elections, the vote split it caused underscored the party's nuisance value, prompting the three MVA allies to invite Ambedkar for talks and negotiate a deal, political analysts said.
MVA allies want to keep Ambedkar on their side
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut has already hinted at his party's willingness to exchange some seats, but the party is unlikely to bring down the number of constituencies from where it wants to fight. Raut and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader and MLA Jitendra Awhad have publicly appealed to Ambedkar not to take any step that would benefit the BJP.
According to the analysts, the three MVA allies want to keep Ambedkar on their side to avoid any possibility of vote division.
After the meeting, Raut said: "The talks among the four party leaders were positive. We discussed all 48 Lok Sabha seats and there was no dissent among the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP over seat sharing. Ambedkar has given a proposal from his party. It is a wish of all three parties that the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi should be a part of our alliance while contesting elections."
Asked how the meeting went, Ambedkar said: "You will be briefed later. One more meeting will be held. According to sources, the Shiv Sena (UBT) will demand 23 seats, the Congress 15 and the NCP 10 seats." A few days ago, Ambedkar had said there were differences between the three parties over 15 seats.
