Days after the I.N.D.I.A Opposition bloc meeting in Mumbai, Shiv Sena (UBT) head Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday met NCP supremo Sharad Pawar - a development that is being seen as the initiation of seat-sharing talks in Maharashtra among the Maha Vikas Aghadi partners.
While Thackeray was accompanied by Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut, Pawar was accompanied by NCP’s state unit President Jayant Patil.
The meeting, held at Pawar’s residence at Breach Candy, lasted for around 90 minutes.
The meeting comes ahead of the meeting of the 14-member coordination committee of I.N.D.I.A at Pawar’s residence in New Delhi.
Incidentally, both Thackeray and Pawar are rattled by BJP-engineered splits in their respective parties - involving Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde, who is now the Chief Minister and NCP’s Ajit Pawar who has become the Deputy Chief Minister alongside BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis.
The Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP group led by Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule have decided to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls together with smaller allies.
The Pawar-Thackeray meeting comes against the backdrop of the burning issue of the Maratha reservation and fears among the OBC community about their quota getting reduced.
As decided in the I.N.D.I.A to hold discussions on seat-sharing, the NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) leadership would be meeting the top brass of the state Congress.
In 2021, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court struck down reservations for Marathas, terming it unconstitutional as it violated the 50 per cent limit on reservations and the 102nd Amendment.
The demand for reservations to Marathas ahead of the polls has become a challenge for the Shinde-led BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government.
Published 12 September 2023, 09:59 IST