MVA will get over 170 seats in Maharashtra polls: NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Congress, and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) will get ‘more than 170 seats’ in the Maharashtra assembly elections, senior NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil asserted on Friday.
This, according to Patil, is because the people of Maharashtra ‘hate betrayal and cheating.’
“Our alliance will win over 170 seats as the people of the state detest betrayal and cheating. The next government will be ours and we will provide good governance with concrete and long-term welfare schemes,” he said at his party’s ‘Shiv Swarajya Yatra’ in Junnar and Manchar in Pune district.
The elections for Maharashtra’s 288-member legislative assembly are likely to be held in October. After the 2019 polls, contested and won by the BJP-Shiv Sena as the ruling alliance, the long-time partners went their separate ways as a dispute arose over the chief minister’s post; the Sena partnered the Congress and NCP to birth the MVA, and party supremo Uddhav Thackeray took over as chief minister.
However, in June 2022, Sena’s Eknath Shinde rebelled against Thackeray, causing the MVA government to collapse; the former also split the party. With the BJP’s support, Shinde became chief minister, a post he continues to hold. His faction is recognised by the Election Commission as the ‘real’ Shiv Sena, while the Thackeray-led group functions as Shiv Sena (UBT).
Then, in July of next year, Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, did the same in the NCP, and became deputy chief minister in Maharashtra’s BJP-Shinde Sena government. Here, too, the Ajit faction is the ‘real’ NCP, while the Sharad group is called NCP (SP).
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the MVA won 30 of the state’s 48 parliamentary seats, and the Mahayuti (BJP-Shinde Sena-NCP) won only 17 seats.
(With PTI inputs)