With the last of the seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections to go and results awaited, the Nationalist Congress party (NCP) Ajit Pawar camp is gearing up for the upcoming Maharasthra Assembly elections to be held around October.
Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has called a meeting of all senior party leaders and MLAs to chalk out the strategy for the upcoming Assembly elections as well as to hold a review of the Lok Sabha elections to gauge if the faction benefitted from being with the Mahayuti alliance.
The Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra includes the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP.
Earlier, senior NCP leader Chagan Bhujbal made it clear that they should get a proper share in seat distribution during the state elections and said that what happened during the Lok Sabha polls should not be repeated.
"We should at least get 80 to 90 seats in the assembly (polls) so that we can score up to 50 to 60 seats", claimed Bhujbal.
Reacting to this, Praful Patel, executive president of the NCP, assured that this time setting and waiting in seat distribution would not work but electability and winnability of the candidates would be the only criteria.
"We have good strength, and we will get an appropriate share in seat distribution. Now even BJP knows that it is necessary to make arrangements on some seats to get power back in the state", Patel said.
Ajit Pawar further clarified that in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the opposition had secured only seven out of the 48 seats in the state. Hence, the NCP had a limited scope to demand more seats during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
However, he assured that every party worker and leader would get an equal opportunity in the upcoming state elections.
Ajit Pawar said that he has conveyed to senior leaders in the NDA-led Mahayuti alliance that delay in announcing the candidate for the Nashik Lok Sabha seat has benefitted their opponents (the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises the Congress, the Sharad Pawar faction of NCP and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena).
"This scenario should be avoided during state elections", said Pawar.
Meanwhile, Dheeraj Sharma, National Youth Congress spokesperson, also joined the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP on Monday in the presence of senior party leaders.
