Pawar pitches for MVA allies to contest Maha Assembly and LS polls together

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday pitched for contesting the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly and the Lok Sabha polls together with the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and CongressTalking to reporters he claimed that despite a split in the Shiv Sena majority of the hardcore Shiv Sainiks who work on the ground stand behind Uddhav ThackerayPawar said MLAs and MPs may have aligned with the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena after the split but when polls take place they will also know what the views of people areAfter the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections Thackeray had snapped ties with longterm ally Bharatiya Janata Party BJP and tiedup with the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA government in the stateThe Thackeray government collapsed in June last year after a revolt led by Shinde against the Sena leadershipTo a query on the issue of alliance Pawar said The understanding is that the Congress NCP and Uddhav Thackeray should work together for the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra polls The Republican Party and some groups should be included But we are having discussions We take decisions jointly on many issues so there should not be any problem in thisAlso Read Centre should change its attitude towards cooperative banks Sharad PawarThe NCP chief had last year also said the MVA allies should fight the Maharashtra Assembly elections togetherThe Lok Sabha polls are due in May 2024 and the Maharashtra Assembly elections are due in October next yearThackeray had in November last year predicted midterm polls in Maharashtra and asked his party workers to start the preparationsOn the issue of the ongoing border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka Pawar said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had convened a meeting with different partiesThe case should be strongly presented before court by roping top legal experts of the country he addedThe border dispute is currently pending before the Supreme CourtThe issue dates back to 1957 after the reorganisation of States on linguistic lines Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency as it has a sizeable Marathispeaking population It also laid claim to over 800 Marathispeaking villages which are currently part of KarnatakaKarnataka maintains the demarcation done on linguistic lines as per the States Reorganisation Act and the 1967 Mahajan Commission Report as finalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever