MVA seat-sharing row: Ramesh Chennithala rushes to meet Thackeray, douses flames

Mumbai: Perturbed over the face-off in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) over seat-sharing for the November 20 Assembly elections, the Congress despatched AICC General Secretary Ramesh Chennithala to meet Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray to break the deadlock -- 72 hours before the poll process gets underway -- here on Saturday.

The development follows sharp bickerings between state Congress President Nana F. Patole and S. S. (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut over the past few days over a dozen of the total 288 seats in the state Assembly.

Embarrassing the MVA leaders, Raut has openly accused Patole of adopting an adamant approach to the seat sharing process, mostly in Vidarbha, while the latter has claimed that he was merely following his party protocols in consultation with the Congress high command in New Delhi -- as the ruling alliance MahaYuti gleefully watched the unfolding drama on the other side.

Yesterday, a peeved Thackeray urged that "the differences should not be stretched to a breaking point" -- alarming the MVA allies -- prompting Congress to send Chennithala post-haste to iron out the deep wrinkles among the two major allies.

Even Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar has voiced concerns over the current logjam over seat divisions, while MVA supporters like Samajwadi Party have threatened to go solo if the MVA-INDIA bloc doesn’t part with at least a dozen seats and accommodate smaller allies.

Chennithala, along with state Working President M. Arif Naseem Khan and other bigwigs went to Thackeray’s home 'Matoshri' in Bandra East where Raut and other seniors were also present.

A Congress leader from Nagpur claimed that the alleged differences are more of an ego clash between Patole-Raut, which would be resolved amicably and do not pose any threats to the MVA partnership.

Declining to be quoted, he said that so far, the MVA allies have finalised a fair and all-inclusive seat-sharing formula for around 265 seats in the state, and the remaining (out of 288), is likely to be completed in the next couple of days, affording sufficient time to file the nominations before the last date (October 29).