Uddhav Reiterates He is Ready to Support Congress, NCP(SP)’s CM Candidate

“I have said this before and I say again that Congress or NCP should declare the face of the Chief Minister and I will support them right now Because Maharashtra is important for us. I want to protect the interests of Maharashtra. My resolve is to do anything to save Maharashtra,” Thackeray said on Tuesday.

The Sena (UBT) chief has been insisting that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance should first declare its chief ministerial face in Maharashtra before going to the Vidhan Sabha polls rather than going by the logic of who wins most seats. In August, he had said he would back any candidate announced by the Congress and the NCP (SP) for the top post. The MVA is a coalition of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) faction.

However, his demand received a cold response from his alliance partners as both the Congress and the NCP (SP) had then made it clear that any decision about the CM face would be taken only after the Vidhan Sabha poll results were out.

The upcoming Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections will see a contest between the MVA coalition and the Mahayuti Alliance, which includes the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction), and NCP (Ajit Pawar faction). There are hectic parlays in both the coalitions for the seat sharing arrangement, which has reached the final stage.

According to political observers, the Sena (SBT) chief has reiterated his demand for the CM candidate as Congress received a setback in Haryana. The Haryana results have come in as a rude shock for the Congress and it will affect its bargaining power with its alliance partners, as they will seek more leverage in the allocation of seats in Maharashtra, they said.

Taking a dig at the Mahayuti government's flagship ‘CM Majhi Ladki Bahin’ (CM My Beloved Sister) scheme, under which Rs 1,500 is given per month to underprivileged women, Thackeray claimed the ruling coalition was trying to make people betray “Maharashtra dharma” by giving their own money (through the scheme). “It is raining assurances, but there is a drought when it comes to implementation of schemes,” he said.

At the event on Tuesday, Thackeray also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have built a wall between Gujarat and the rest of the country. “There was never a Gujarati–Marathi dispute in Maharashtra. We talk about justice for the “sons of soil”. But that does not mean our party is anyone’s enemy. Our fight is against forces who are anti-India and anti-Maharashtra,” the former Maharashtra CM said.