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With days to go before Lok Sabha elections conclude in Maharashtra in the fifth phase on May 20, the state’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis sits down with The Indian Express to discuss his assessment of the ground situation in the state, coordination problems between the members of the ruling Mahayuti alliance, Sharad Pawar, and Uddhav Thackeray.
Assam Chief Minister strongly criticized Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole's recent comment about the “purification" of the, describing it as “dangerous".
Maharashtra is a critical piece of the election puzzle this time — since the last Lok Sabha election of 2019, the traditional “communal vs secular” battlelines have been rearranged beyond recognition, after Shiv Sena and NCP splintered, and both government and Opposition were reconstituted. On the Opposition side, an unlikely alliance has taken shape — between Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP (SP) led by Sharad Pawar. At Matoshri in the leafy Mumbai enclave of Kalanagar, a day ahead of the first phase of polling, The Indian Express caught up with Uddhav Thackeray, the man who is most in the spotlight. He is seen to have borne the brunt of the political disruption, with the bulk of his MLAs migrating to the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, which formed the government with the BJP; he has cast his lot with his “secular” opponent, and is now fighting his old “Hindutva” ally. Excerpts from an interview:
With five days to go for the start of the five-phase elections in Maharashtra, Mahayuti partners BJP, Shiv Sena, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are struggling to arrive at a consensus on nine of the 48 Lok Sabha seats that go to polls on in the third, fourth, and fifth phases and whose nomination dates close on April 19, April 25, and May 3 respectively.
A former Congress stronghold and the seat of the RSS headquarters, the BJP has coasted to victory in Nagpur in the last two Lok Sabha polls with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari winning both times. But with its vote share having gone up 10 percentage points in 2019, people in the city talking about local issues such as unemployment and civic amenities, and given the caste dynamics, the Congress believes it is in with a chance this time around.
Eknath Khadse, a senior leader of the NCP Sharad Pawar faction, is all set to return to his parent party BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, as the BJP struggles to tackle in-house challenges in its stronghold of North Maharashtra.
After the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the BJP may be preparing to bring another party on board the ruling alliance in Maharashtra.
AFTER THE intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who held meetings late into Tuesday and early Wednesday, the BJP appears to have worked out a seat-sharing formula for Maharashtra. Sources said that the BJP is likely to contest 32 of the 48 seats in the state as per the deal, with the Shinde Shiv Sena fighting 11 and the NCP (Ajit Pawar) 5 seats.