Ekla Chalo Re (go it alone) clamour became a watchword for major political parties in the Assembly poll-bound Maharashtra on Friday, as major differences cropped up between the ruling Congress and NCP on one hand and Opposition Shiv Sena and BJP on the other over the sharing of seats.
A day after a belligerent section of the Maharashtra BJP unit rooted for the party severing its links with its alliance partner Shiv Sena and going it alone in the Assembly polls, Maharashtra’s deputy Chief Minister Pawar of the NCP upped the ante by asking his party cadre to prepare themselves to contests all the 288 seats in the polls in the event of the party not getting equal share of 144 seats from its ruling alliance partner, Congress.
Though Sena president Uddhav Thackeray was cautious in his reaction to Ekla Chalo Re threat emanating from sections of the State BJP, the mood among the Sena cadre was in favour of the party contesting all the 288 Assembly seats in the State. While Uddhav chose not to react to the clamour of going it alone in the Assembly polls voiced by many BJP leaders at the party’s State executive meeting held in Mumbai on Thursday, the Sena cadre were vociferous in their stand that the party be prepared for contesting all the 288 seats.
As the BJP and Shiv Sena engaged themselves in battle of nerves over the sharing of seats for the Assembly polls, Ajit Pawar strongly rooted for a 144:144 seat tie-up with the Congress and asked his party cadre to prepare themselves to contest all the 288 seats in the event of the Sonia Gandhi-led party not agreeing to give 144 seats to it in the Assembly polls.
In 2009 polls, the Congress contested 174 seats and won 82, while the NCP contested 114 seats and bagged 62. “In the 2009 Assembly elections, the Congress and NCP had decided on the number of seats to be contested by each party on the basis of the basis of performances of the two parties in the lok Sabha polls held earlier that year,” the Deputy Chief Minister said, while addressing the NCP workers’ conference at Ahmednagar in western Maharashtra.