Consensus among Maha Vikas Aghadi allies on 39 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra: Sharad Pawar

Pic: PTI File

NCP founder Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said members of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have arrived at a consensus on contesting 39 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

He said more rounds of discussions will be held for the remaining five to six constituencies, newswire PTI reported.

Maharashtra sends 48 members to Lok Sabha.

Pawar was speaking to reporters in Kolhapur after meeting Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, a member of the erstwhile royal family.

The veteran politician virtually proposed the candidature of Shahu Maharaj in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections as the MVA nominee.

Queried on the status of seat-sharing discussions among the Opposition parties, Pawar said, "There is consensus on 39 seats. We will hold discussions for the rest 5 to 6 seats".

Pawar said he had not yet spoken to other allies- Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), and Congress- about Shahu Maharaj's candidature.

"I will be glad to see him contesting the Lok Sabha elections. He has been doing social work for a long time, which aligns with social reformers late Shahu Maharaj, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and B R Ambedkar," he added.

Pawar said Shahu Maharaj generally stays away from political events, but he has been actively participating in social events and programmes.

In the 2019 general elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena (undivided) won 41 out of 48 seats they had contested jointly in Maharashtra.

The Nationalist Congress Party (undivided) and the Congress collectively won only 5 seats.

However, the political landscape has changed since 2019 in view of vertical splits in the Shiv Sena and NCP, whereas the BJP is consolidating its base by inducting disgruntled leaders from rival parties.

Meanwhile, Pawar Tuesday said the draft of the Maratha quota bill passed by the Maharashtra legislature was similar to the earlier legislation which could not stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court in the past. "We need to see what happens to the fresh bill in the Supreme Court," Pawar told reporters in Kolhapur.

The state legislature has unanimously passed the Maharashtra State Socially and Educationally Backward Bill 2024 granting a 10 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in government jobs and education under a new category.

"The draft of the bill cleared by the state legislature today is the same as that of the one presented before the apex court. We need to see what happens to the fresh bill in the Supreme Court," Pawar said. (With inputs from PTI)