Fourth meeting of Pawar-Uddhav-Congress alliance in 21 days in Maharashtra: Discussion on distribution of 288 seats, Uddhav says- CM's face to be decided first

The Vikas Aghadi (Congress, NCP SP and Shiv Sena UBT) meeting has started in Mumbai to share all 288 seats in the Maharashtra assembly elections. This is the fourth meeting of the coalition for sheet sharing this month. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole have arrived to participate in this meeting held at Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray's house at Matoshree. In the first 3 meetings, the leaders' statements on different issues came up. Opposition alliance's fourth seat in 21 days in Maharashtra 5 incumbent Congress MLAs may be denied tickets It is almost certain that 5 Congress MLAs who cross-voted in the Legislative Council (MLC) elections in Maharashtra will be denied tickets in the assembly elections. According to reports, the party will give a chance to new faces. However, no official information has been given by the Congress in this regard. The MLAs who were not given tickets include Sulbha Khodke, Jeeshan Siddiqui, Hiraman Khoskar, Jitesh Antapurkar, Mohan Humbarde. There were reports of cross-voting of 7-8 Congress MLAs in MLC elections. NDA won 9 out of 11 seats in MLC elections NDA won 9 out of 11 seats in MLC elections held on 12 July. Whereas, India won only 2 out of 3 blocks. A candidate needed the votes of 23 MLAs to win the election. In the Maharashtra Assembly, BJP has 103 MLAs, Shiv Sena 37, NCP 39, Congress 37, Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) 15 and NCP (Sharad faction) 13. The tenure of BJP-Shiv Sena government will end in November 2024 Maharashtra is currently under BJP-Shiv Sena government. His term ends on 26 November 2024, so elections could be held in October 2024. In the 2019 assembly elections, BJP became the largest party by winning 105 seats. However, the Shiv Sena (pre-split) and BJP alliance could not reach an agreement on the Chief Minister's post. Shiv Sena (before split) formed the government with 56 MLAs followed by Congress (45 MLAs) and NCP (before split) (53 MLAs). Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray became the Chief Minister. After this, in May 2022, Urban Development Minister in the MVA government Eknath Shinde revolted along with 39 MLAs and joined the BJP. Eknath Shinde was sworn in as the 20th Chief Minister of Maharashtra on 30 June 2022. With this Shiv Sena was divided into two factions. One group consisted of the Shinde group and the other the Uddhav group. On February 17, 2023, the Election Commission ordered that the party name 'Shiv Sena' and the party's election symbol 'Bow and Arrow' remain with the Eknath Shinde faction.

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