‘THOSE WHO LEFT ME…’: UDDHAV THACKERAY ON EKNATH SHINDE CAMP POSSIBLE HOMECOMING
Buoyed by the victory of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday announced that the opposition alliance will contest the Maharashtra assembly elections together. Thackeray also ruled out the possibility of taking back leaders from the Eknath Shinde camp and said, “Those who left me will not be taken back in the party.”
Thackeray was addressing a press conference alongside NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar, Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, and other senior leaders of the alliance.
“This was a fight to save the constitution and democracy. Assembly elections are coming shortly. This government was the Modi government and now it has become the NDA government. Now it is to be seen how long this government will last,” he said.
Responding to allegations from the BJP that the MVA used a fake narrative, Thackeray retorted, “What was the narrative used by Modi? What about the Mangalsutra narrative? Was it right? BJP itself gave the slogan of 400. What happened to the narrative of good days, what happened to Modi's guarantee.”
He also compared the BJP government at the Centre to a rickshaw with three legs, echoing a metaphor used by Devendra Fadnavis to describe the previous MVA government.
“Devendra Fadnavis told us that our government is like the three legs of a rickshaw, the condition of the BJP government at the centre is also the same,” he added.
Read: Uddhav seeks report on whether Sena (UBT) has the potential to win assembly polls on its own
Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan expressed gratitude to the people of Maharashtra for their support in the Lok Sabha elections. “We all have come together today to thank the people of Maharashtra and to express our gratitude to everyone. The people of Maharashtra have made the MVA candidates victorious. For the first time after the results of the Lok Sabha elections, the leaders of the INDIA alliance of Maharashtra have met today. This press conference is to thank the people,” Chavan said.
He also voiced optimism about the assembly elections, hoping for continued support from the electorate.
“I hope that the way people voted for us in the Lok Sabha elections, we will get the same love in the assembly elections and now there will be a change of power in Maharashtra,” he said.
On the coalition's approach to the upcoming assembly elections, Chavan said, “There is no big or small brother in our coalition. We will take a decision on seat sharing by considering each assembly seat. Our preliminary discussions have already happened.”
In the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won 13 seats, a quantum jump from the solitary seat it won in the state in 2019, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) bagged nine and the NCP (SP) eight. In the seat-sharing deal for the general elections, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party had got the largest share of seats among the three parties. Of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats, the Sena (UBT) contested 21 seats, followed by Congress at 17 and NCP (SP) at 10.
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2024-06-15T10:43:13Z dg43tfdfdgfd