Maharashtra: MVA denies fissures within, keeps strategy under wraps

While the BJP is trying to win over the Independents and small party MLAs on its own, the Shiv Sena, Congress and the NCP seem to be doing so separately, leading to allegations that they are working for the interest of their respective candidates. However, leaders of all the three constituents have denied the charge.

Written by Manoj Dattatrye More

Pune | Updated: June 18, 2022 07:27 AM IST

4 min read

Sharad Pawar with Uddhav Thackeray. (File)

With elections to the ten seats of State Legislative Council drawing closer, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which faced an embarrassing defeat in the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls, is leaving no stone unturned to woo Independent and small party MLAs while trying to keep its flock together. There are 11 candidates in the fray for the elections to be held on June 20.

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“The Congress is trying to woo Independents who owe allegiance to the NCP. On the other hand, the NCP is trying to win over Independent and small party MLAs close to Shiv Sena. The Sena, which is trying to keep its flock together, never faced such a situation when they were with the BJP,” alleged BJP spokesperson Ashish Shelar on Friday. The BJP has 106 MLAs. Each candidate needs 27 votes to get elected. The election is expected to be a cakewalk for four of the party’s candidates but it has fielded five candidates.

Minister Balasaheb Thorat, a senior Congress leader, denied that all the three constituents were working at cross-purposes. “No, it is not true that separate phone calls are going from our three parties to Independent and small parties MLAs. Each one of us trying to keep the MLAs who supported us all along within our fold. We have a strategy in place…All our six candidates will win,” he said.

Sena chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut too denied the charge. “We have learnt our lessons from the failure in Rajya Sabha polls. We have realised what went wrong. We are now skilled at winning, we have devised an effective and coordinated strategy…but we will not reveal what it is…BJP won’t even realise how we managed to outsmart it,” he told this paper.

Meanwhile, Hitendra Thakur, who heads the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and has three MLAs, refused to reveal who his party is going to support. NCP candidate Ramraje Nimbalkar, Congress candidate Bhai Jagtap and BJP candidate Prasad Lad met him separately, but Thakur kept his cards close to his chest. In the Rajya Sabha polls too, Thakur’s BVA played a crucial role. The Shiv Sena had openly alleged that BVA had voted for the BJP candidate. Thakur had clarified that his MLAs had voted for all winning candidate.

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Mahadeo Jankar, chief of Rashtriya Samaj Party, who has two MLAs, said, “We have not yet decided to whom we will vote. Neither BJP nor MVA has contacted us.” Jankar was a minister in Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP-Sena government. However, of late, he has voiced his for the MVA.

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MVA minister Bachchu Kadu, who heads the Prahar Janshakti, said, “We have been with the MVA and will remain with it.”

Independent MLA Devendra Bhuyar, took a jibe at the Shiv Sena, “I hope when I vote, Sanjay Raut accompanies me…Or he should himself vote on my behalf.” After Rajya Sabha polls, Raut had alleged that Bhuyar voted for the BJP candidate. Bhuyar had denied the charge.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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