Chavan said, “The leaders of the three parties have been in talks with the rebel candidates and we are confident that by Thursday, the last date for withdrawing nominations, they will have taken their candidatures back.” The numbers are stacked in favour of the Mahayuti with 16 seats to be elected from local bodies and a bypoll for the Nagpur local authorities constituency. But, the process has once again shown the disconnect within the parties on the ground. The BJP is contesting 11 of the 17 seats, the Shiv Sena is contesting four, while the NCP is contesting two. “Eknath Shinde is more ambitious than Uddhav Thackeray was as a coalition partner, which is a cause of concern for the BJP. Secondly, the BJP’s own ambitions have increased drastically and the situation has changed a lot since 2022 when the Shiv Sena split. The BJP is trying to occupy whatever space it can get, and at some places it is at the cost of Shinde’s Shiv Sena,” Sanjay Patil, a researcher at Mumbai University, told ThePrint. He added that the BJP’s immediate ambition is to boost its numbers in the legislative council and the Rajya Sabha. On Monday, Shiv Sena MLA Abdul Sattar told reporters that the BJP is trying to finish the Shiv Sena. “It has already cut off our arms and legs, and is now trying to chop off our heads…Kamakhya Devi in Guwahati remembers our sacrifices, but the BJP has forgotten them,” Sattar said, referring to the June 2022 visit of all Shiv Sena MLAs who had split from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena to Guwahati. Sattar also suggested that both Shiv Senas—the one under Shinde and Thackeray—should merge, something that MLC Ambadas Danve from the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had also spoken about. Sattar’s son, Sameer Sattar, was one of the rebel candidates within Mahayuti from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar-Jalna where the BJP has fielded Suhas Shirsat as the Mahayuti’s official candidate. Shinde held a late night meeting with all his party MLAs in the Marathwada region on Tuesday post which Sattar said he will urge his son to take his candidature back. However, he continued his onslaught against the BJP in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Sattar did not respond to ThePrint’s calls, but speaking with Marathi television channel ABP Majha on Wednesday, the MLA said, “We have followed the alliance dharma, but today’s situation has forced us to talk about the truth on the ground. Three years later we have the Lok Sabha election, then there are legislative assembly polls, the leadership needs to address these issues. I am not saying we haven’t made any mistakes, but both sides need to learn to follow the alliance dharma.” Backing Sattar, Sanjay Gaikwad, another Shiv Sena MLA from Buldhana, told reporters, “Abdul Sattar’s grievance is real. We have seen how two Shiv Sena cabinet ministers were attacked, and there was not even an inquiry into the incident.” During the Satara Zilla Parishad elections for which the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Sunetra Pawar-led NCP had joined hands, Shiv Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai and NCP Minister Makrand Patil had alleged that the local police had manhandled and dragged them. Mahayuti allies had slammed the BJP for alleged state-sponsored manipulation with CM Devendra Fadnavis holding the home portfolio. Gaikwad further said, “Even in my constituency, senior BJP leaders don’t let any of my calling attention motions be discussed in the legislature.” Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Shiv Sena Minister Uday Samant said the Mahayuti’s “Samanvay samiti,” which he is a part of, will discuss these issues. “While working in an alliance there are some pluses and minuses, but when we work in the Shiv Sena, we accept the order of our party chief. There is a Samanvay samiti within the Mahayuti. We meet every Tuesday, we will discuss these problems and take it up.” He clarified that there is no reason for his party to knock on the doors of Matoshree, the Thackeray residence, amid talks of a reunion between the two parties. The day started with a long list of Mahayuti rebels in the fray, with some of these being children of party leaders wanting to establish political careers. Mahayuti leaders scrambled to douse the rebellion wherever possible. Shinde’s late night meeting resulted in Sattar agreeing to take his son Sameer’s nomination back. Further, Shinde issued directions to Mahendra Dalvi to get his daughter, Juilee Dalvi, to withdraw from the Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency. While Juilee or Mahendra Dalvi was himself not present to withdraw the nomination, Shiv Sena MLA Bharat Gogawale’s son Vikas Gogawale said, “We have just withdrawn Juilee Dalvi’s candidature. We are all karyakartas who follow our leader’s directions. Shinde Saheb had called. He also told Dalvi saheb.” Tatkare, whose son Aniket Tatkare is the official candidate in the constituency, said that the decision to support Aniket from NCP was taken collectively by Mahayuti and “very amicably.” “The process of taking nomination back (by rebels) has already started. And we are sure that tomorrow at 3 pm when the time for withdrawals is done, Mahayuti will be standing unitedly behind 17 candidates,” Tatkare said at Wednesday’s joint Mahayuti press conference. In Nashik, BJP’s Ganesh Gite, as well as his brother Gokul Gite, has filed his nomination despite the Shiv Sena’s Narendra Darade being the Mahayuti’s official candidate. On Wednesday, Shiv Sena Minister Samant travelled to Nashik, but Gite had left for Mumbai. BJP Minister Girish Mahajan, a Nashik strongman, told reporters that he had called Gite for a meeting. “We will definitely find a solution. At many other places, the problem has been solved. We will find a solution here too,” Mahajan said. (Edited by Gitanjali Das) Also Read: MLC polls: Mahayuti seat-sharing talks hit a wall—Shinde digs in, BJP refuses to budge, NCP firm on Pune
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