NCP (SP) MP Amol Kolhe, who represents the Shirur Lok Sabha seat, on Monday claimed that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — a coalition of Congress, Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena and NCP led by Sharad Pawar — will win at least 180-190 seats in the upcoming Assembly polls in the state.
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"Looking at the trends of the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the MVA is ahead on at least 155 Assembly seats. I am sure this number will increase to 180-190 seats given that we are taking a lot of efforts," Kolhe said in a video he posted on X (formerly Twitter). He captioned the video, "Ab ki baar, MVA sarkar."
Recently, Kolhe's party chief Sharad Pawar emphasised that the "winds of change" were blowing and said the MVA could win 225 seats.
"In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the opposition won six seats, while in the 2024 election, the MVA won 31 out of 48 seats. Winds of change are blowing. People saw the Modi administration and have decided to change it. The change was possible owing to people's movement. I am sure the same trend will be reflected in the Assembly election too. MVA will win 225 out of 288 seats," the former Union minister said.
The election for the 288-seat Maharashtra Assembly is likely to be held in the month of October. In order to form a government, a party or an alliance, needs a minimum of 145 seats.
In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP was the single-largest party with 105 seats, the undivided Shiv Sena got 56, the undivided NCP got 54 and the Congress bagged 44 seats. Despite being in a pre-poll alliance, Shiv Sena joined hands with Congress-NCP and Uddhav Thackeray became the chief minister. However, this was short-lived as Eknath Shinde rebelled along with over 40 MLAs and formed a government with the BJP. Shinde was made the CM and Devendra Fadnavis became his deputy. Following this, there was another similar rebellion in the NCP as Ajit Pawar joined hands with Shinde and Fadnavis, taking away his supporter MLAs. He was also made a deputy CM.
This coalition — Mahayuti — did not get the anticipated success in the Lok Sabha polls with BJP winning only nine seats, Shinde Sena bagging seven and Ajit Pawar's NCP emerging victorious on just one seat. It will be interesting to see if the people continue to back the MVA as they did in the Lok Sabha polls or swing in favour of the Mahayuti in the Assembly polls.
