Ahead of the local and civic body elections in Maharashtra, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) or INDIA bloc appears to be wilting as leaders are now openly questioning each other.
Shiv Sena(UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said on Friday that the meeting of the INDIA bloc, after the Lok Sabha elections was held, was not a good one. He dared the Congress party to announce that the INDIA bloc was restricted to Lok Sabha elections, and it doesn't exist anymore.
Raut targeted the Congress party, being a big brother in the opposition bloc, saying that Mamata Banerjee, Tejashwi Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav and Omar Abdullah have already said that the INDIA Abloc does not exist anymore.
"If such feelings come into the minds of leaders of the alliance, then the Congress party, which is the biggest party in the alliance is a bloc. If the Congress party had taken a stand that the INDIA bloc was formed for the Lok Sabha elections then it should declare it. I tell you one thing if this alliance breaks, then this alliance will never be formed again," he said.
This is the third time since coming to power when Raut makes such an appeal as Shiv Sena(UBT) demands independence for solo fighting in the coming elections of BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation elections. MVA, that won 31 Lok Sabha seats had to remain behind 50-mark as Mahayuti trounced its seats in the recently concluded Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections. Though they took a drubbing, the MVA partners have not swung into action to keep the alliance alive to take on the Mahayuti in Maharashtra.
The NCP(SP) MP, Dr Amol Kolhe at the party meeting held on Thursday took a dig at Congress saying, "The Congress party's broken back is not ready to straighten out yet, while the Thackeray group is not ready to wake up from its slumber."
He criticized Congress and Shiv Sena(UBT) for not starting afresh after the debacle in the Assembly elections and taking due initiatives for the Maha Vikas Aghadi to gear up for the ensuing local and civic body elections. "Shiv Sena and Congress have not yet shaken off their stagnation, so we, NCP(SP), will have to work from now on with new enthusiasm to revive and win the local and civic bod6 election," he told the party workers. "We have Sharad Pawar who is fighting. Currently, there is a large vacuum left in the opposition, so those who survive will fight more aggressively," said Dr Kolhe.
That is not all. Former Leader of the opposition and Veteran congress legislator, Vijay Wadettiwar, while describing the outcome said that, lacking proper planning and strategy, Mahavikas Aghadi miserably failed to defeat the Mahayuti in the assembly election. He did not name anyone but hinted that the differences and war of words between state Congress chief Nana Patole and Shiv Sena(UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, which became viral, did not go down well in the MVA and it took a long time for arriving at a seat-sharing agreement.
“During seat-sharing talks Nana Patole and Sanjay Raut were there, we were also there. Had the stalemate over the seat-sharing been resolved in two days, the MVA partners would have got poll planning and campaigning. We could not plan a joint programme for the elections with all three parties. There were many reasons for this. So this is one of the main reasons, the mess in seat allocation and the time spent on it affected the MVA's poll prospects badly," claimed Wadettiwar.
Wadettiwar shot back at Dr Kolhe saying that he should take some attention towards the functioning of his party and lesser advice on giving to the Congress party. Raut retorted on Wadettiwar by asking him who did it and through which mechanism, seat sharing had been delayed. Be it Sharad Pawar, Jayant Patil or all of us Shiv Sena(UBT) leaders, it is true that the seat allocation was not completed till the last day of filing applications. If the seat allocation is delayed so much in any alliance, there is a sense of unease, the workers do not get time to work for poll management," said Raut.
On the other hand, seat allocation was done almost two months back in Mahayuti, and despite his elaboration going on, seat allocation was done," he said. "Pain of Vijay Vadettiwar is the pain of the entire MVA. Mistakes were committed. There was no necessity to delay the seat allocation process. Those mistakes should be accepted, we were saying that seats were distributed wrongly in many places, but now there is no point in discussing it, he said. Even though Wadettiwar did not name anyone explicitly, but expressed and dropped hints about his own colleagues," Raut said.
When asked about the argument, he replied, "There was an argument between Nana Patole and me, Congress wanted more seats, and (in the elections) Congress got the least seats. They won fewer seats, we won 20 seats, but why argue about it now."
Observes state that disintegration of MVA in the absence of unity and cohesiveness shall prove to be more than handy for Mahayuti to continue winning its victory march in local and civic body elections.
