Maha Cong: No big brother in MVA, will fight Assembly polls unitedly

Mumbai, Aug 7 (IANS) Maharashtra Congress President, Nana F Patole, said on Wednesday that there was no ‘big brother’ in the alliance and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will contest the October Assembly elections unitedly. 

Dismissing contentions that the Congress was allegedly behaving like a ‘Big Brother' with the other MVA allies like the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), Patole said that all issues including seat-sharing were being discussed jointly among the allies.

“We are going to face the elections as MVA and the seat allocation would be done on merit. The Chief Minister shall be decided after the elections. Even the NCP(SP) President has taken the same stance. Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and other leaders will finalise the seat-sharing deal,” said Patole.

He was interacting with media-persons after conducting a preliminary discussion on seat sharing with top leaders, including Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar, Congress Legislature Party leader Balasaheb Thorat, state Working President M Arif Naseem Khan, ex-CM Prithviraj Chavan, ex-minister Nitin Raut, Nana Gawande and Atul Londhe.

Chairman of the Manifesto Committee Chavan has been entrusted with the task of preparing the Congress manifesto in tune with public expectations for the Assembly elections in consultation with other senior leaders of the party and MVA allies, he added.

Referring to SS(UBT) President and ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray’s current three-day visit to New Delhi, Patole said that the latter had gone there earlier also and met top leaders of the Congress and other parties, but this is his first trip after the Lok Sabha elections.

“He is meeting senior Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, and there’s no need for any misinterpretation. Sonia Gandhi had once sacrificed the post of PM and under her leadership the Congress-led UPA government bagged power twice at the Centre. So what’s wrong it he meets them,” countered Patole.

Slamming the ruling Mahayuti state government, he said it had failed on all counts and that’s the reason the masses gave it a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, despite 17 rallies addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Persons from the ruling side like Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis claim that the masses forget things, but the self-respecting people of Maharashtra have not forgotten the Mahayuti’s sins in the past and will give them a befitting reply again,” reiterated Patole.