Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Friday announced that he would support any candidate nominated by the Congress and NCP (SP) as the Chief Ministerial candidate of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ahead of the Assembly polls in the state. He insisted that the CM candidate should be announced before the election.
The Congress and NCP (SP) have so far not paid heed to the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s demand to declare Thackeray the CM candidate. The Shiv Sena (UBT) is confident that the MVA will have no option but to accept him if it is forced to take the decision before the polls.
Addressing a joint meeting of MVA workers in Mumbai. Thackeray said: “The Assembly election is not about me. It is a fight to safeguard Maharashtra’s rights.”
Thackeray warned that the policy of naming the CM candidate after the polls would prove counterproductive. “I am saying this based on our experience with the BJP. If we decide that the party winning the highest number of seats within the alliance gets the CM's post, then the alliance partners try to defeat each other’s candidates,” he said.
The meeting was also attended by NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, party working president Supriya Sule, Congress’ state president Nana Patole, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, CLP leader Balasaheb Thorat among several other leaders from the MVA.
They did not speak on the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance. Taking a dig at Thackeray, BJP leader Ashish Shelar said that the Shiv Sena (UBT) chief had finally come to terms with the stand taken by his alliance partners on the issue of the chief ministerial candidate.
The MVA, which consists of Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), is confident that it will get a clear majority in the Assembly elections as it won 29 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. The Congress emerged as the largest party by winning 12.
Congress leaders such as Patole and Chavan have insisted that the next Maharashtra CM should be decided after the election and whichever alliance partner wins the highest Assembly seats should get the post.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are expected to take place in October or November this year.
Addressing the meeting, Pawar said that the threat to the Constitution is still not over even if the BJP did not get a majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Referring to the Independence Day event at the Red Fort on Thursday, the NCP (SP) chief said, “The Centre did not honour the post of Leader of Opposition. Rahul Gandhi was made to sit in the back row.”
Pawar said that when he was the Leader of the Opposition during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure, his seating arrangement at the I-Day event was alongside Cabinet Ministers. He recalled that when Manmohan Singh was PM, the then LoP Sushma Swaraj was given a seat alongside Cabinet ranks. “Just as the PM, the prestige of the LoP has to be maintained,” he said.
State Congress president Nana Patole said that the Centre did not give due respect to LoP Rahul Gandhi during the Independence Day programme. Calling it a murder of democracy, he said, “The BJP still has the arrogance and pride of power, and this arrogant government needs to be ousted in the upcoming assembly elections.”
