The MVA includes the NCP, Thackeray's Sena, and Congress. The three-party coalition ruled from 2019 to the end of June last year. Thackeray's government collapsed after a rebellion by his party's senior leader Eknath Shinde and his supporting MLAs, who later formed an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and came to power.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar claimed that no talks were held among Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents about taking the Prakash Ambedkar led-Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) on board on Saturday, January 28, 2023. Earlier this week, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray announced an alliance the Prakash Ambedkar's VBA ahead of the Mumbai civic elections.
While addressing the media, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said that the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Thackeray-led Sena would contest the upcoming elections together.
"There were no discussions (in the MVA) about Prakash Ambedkar's VBA before the elections. We have no idea what is going on between the two sides, and we don't wish to talk about it,' said Pawar in response to a question about the Sena (UBT)-VBA partnership.
"The NCP, the Thackeray-led Sena, and Congress, will contest the next elections together. We have had no discussions with Ambedkar," he added.
The MVA includes the NCP, Thackeray's Sena, and Congress. The three-party coalition ruled from 2019 to the end of June last year. Thackeray's government collapsed after a rebellion by his party's senior leader Eknath Shinde and his supporting MLAs, who later formed an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and came to power.
The BJP has allegedly said it will seek MVA's cooperation for the Kasba and Chinchwad assembly seats in Pune to be unopposed. Byelections are required since the sitting BJP MLAs in these seats passed away recently.
"I'm not sure who (state BJP president) Chandrakant Patil is writing a letter to. I don't have any knowledge of that. I'm not sure how he didn't consider unopposed elections during the byelections in Kolhapur and Pandharpur," said Pawar.
On Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar's early morning oath-taking ceremony in November 2019, the NCP president said, "It has been two years. Why are you bringing it up?"
On November 23, 2019, Devendra Fadnavis was re-elected as chief minister, with Ajit Pawar as his deputy following the 2019 Assembly elections. Both were sworn in early in the morning ceremony, but the administration only lasted 80 hours.
(With inputs from PTI)
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