In what could be a further embarrassment for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar refused to accept UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray as the chief ministerial face for the state elections and advocated for collective leadership. The development comes after Congress also rejected Uddhav as their CM face.
When asked Sharad Pawar said, "Our alliance is our face. We will face the assembly elections under collective leadership."
Recently Sanjay Raut had said that going to elections without a chief ministerial face could prove dangerous. Raut said, "Uddhav Thackeray had done very good work as the Chief Minister and MVA got votes in the Lok Sabha elections only on his face value."
NCP (SP) state president Jayant Patil on Wednesday said the MVA constituents should stay away from naming a chief ministerial candidate ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections and instead focus on returning to power in the state. He also said that no MVA ally should (unilaterally) declare the number of seats it is contesting as winnability will be the only criteria in the upcoming polls.
Ahead of this year's Lok Sabha elections, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) had announced candidates for 21 out of the total 48 seats in the state. Its decision had drawn flak from the Congress, which said every MVA constituent must follow the coalition dharma. The Congress finally contested 17 seats, while the NCP (SP) fought on 10 seats. After the Lok Sabha poll results, the Sharad Pawar-led party gained an upper hand as it won eight out of 10 seats its contested. The Congress, which had won only one Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra in the 2019 polls, made an impressive comeback, winning 13 out of the 17 seats it contested.
