The issue of seat sharing between Mahavikas Aghadi and Samajwadi Party in Maharashtra Assembly elections remained inconclusive with nine Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates filing their nominations yesterday, the last date of nominations. A senior SP leader here on Wednesday said they were expecting five seats from Mahavikas Aghadi, but till Tuesday nothing was resolved and so 9 of the SP candidates filed their nominations.
According to party sources, it has been decided that its current MLAs Abu Azmi and Raees Sheikh will contest the elections under Mahavikas Aghadi. But if SP does not get five seats ,party will contest all the remaining 7 seats. However a clear picture will emerge only on November 4 after end of the withdrawals.
Out of the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra, SP is demanding five seats from Mahavikas Aghadi. Its president Akhilesh Yadav had recently launched the Maharashtra election campaign by holding public meetings in Dhule City and Malegaon Central.In the last elections, SP had won Mankhurd Shivajinagar seats of Mumbai and Bhiwandi East seats of Thane. Along with this, SP is also demanding three more seats.
At the same time, like Haryana, Congress is not ready to give importance to SP in Maharashtra too. In such a situation, SP, adopting the politics of pressure, had already announced to field its candidates on five seats, but now it has declared its candidates on a total of nine seats. On the other hand, Congress opted out of contesting from 2 seats in UP Assembly bye polls out of 9 after their demand of at least 3 was not accepted by Yadav.
Sources said SP has fielded candidates from Mankhurd Shivajinagar and Bhiwandi East. Nihal Ahmed from Malegaon Central, Irshad Jagirdar from Dhule City, Riyaz Azmi from Bhiwandi West, Devanand Sahebrao Rochkari from Tuljapur, Revan Vishwanath Bhosle from Paranda, Dr. Abdul Ghafar Qadri Sayyid and Sayeed Khan from Bhaykhala have been made candidates. Maharashtra SP state president Abu Azmi says that an agreement has been made to get two seats under the banner of Mahavikas Aghadi. But the party will contest elections on more seats with Mahavikas Aghadi, he added.