Congress win spurs MVA to say it will fight all polls in Maharashtra jointly

MUMBAI: Buoyed by the Congress's sweep in the Karnataka assembly polls, a meeting of leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the city on Sunday decided to fight all upcoming polls together. Reiterating that there were no differences within their alliance, leaders of the three parties again committed to putting up a united front against BJP in the state. They also pledged to restart the alliance's Vajramuth joint rallies.
The meeting, which was held at NCP supremo Sharad Pawar's south Mumbai residence, Silver Oak, was attended by Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut from Shiv Sena (UBT), Ajit Pawar and Jayant Patil from NCP and Nana Patole and Ashok Chavan from Congress, besides other leaders.
This was the first meeting of MVA after Pawar's resignation as NCP chief and his subsequent U-turn and the Supreme Court's order on the disqualification of rebel Shiv Sena MLAs.
MVA allies sink differences, to resume Vajramuth rallies
The meeting of the tripartite MVA alliance at Sharad Pawar’s south Mumbai residence lasted for close to a couple of hours on Sunday evening. Sena (UBT) member of Parliament Sanjay Raut said that seat-sharing talks among MVA constituents would begin soon for the Lok Sabha election and assembly polls due next year. MPCC president Nana Patole said that MVA’s Vajramuth rallies would resume and Karnataka’s new Congress chief minister would be felicitated at the next MVA rally that is slated to be held in Pune. This is in a departure from the alliance’s decision to put off the joint show of strength. MVA had stated that the Vajramuth rally in Pune, scheduled for May 14, would be postponed.
While the alliance had cited the sweltering heat as the official reason, whispers among leaders in Pune had maintained that a crisis was brewing within NCP amid talk of Ajit Pawar joining BJP and after his uncle had announced his resignation as the party’s national president. All of this seems to have evaporated into thin air, for now at least. Patole said that the Karnataka victory had boosted the morale of MVA. “In Karnataka, people were against the 40% corruption sarkar. In Maharashtra, it is khokhe (moneybags).
The Maharashtra government is more corrupt than the government in Karnataka. In the next few days, a new Congress CM will take oath in Karnataka. We discussed a mega Vajramuth rally in Pune in the next few weeks at which a felicitation of the Karnataka CM will be held. This will be done after taking into consideration the rising heat conditions. We will try to tell the people how the BJP government looted them and how the people defeated the government due to their anger against this,” Patole said. NCP leader Jayant Patil maintained that MVA’s rallies had halted due to the scorching heat. “At the last MVA rally held at BKC in Mumbai, we decided to halt the rallies as it was too hot and temperatures in some parts of the state were as high as 44 degrees [Celsius]. We will restart the rallies after checking heat and monsoon conditions. If the weather permits, we will restart the Vajramuth rallies from Pune soon. If need be, the rallies will be held indoors,” Patil said.