Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena on Wednesday announced the party’s all 17 candidates from Maharashtra for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, introducing the candidature of Anil Desai from the Mumbai South Central seat.
The party — which is a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in the state — fielded former Union Ministers Anant Geete and Arvind Sawant from Raigad and South Mumbai constituencies respectively.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Rajan Vichare will contest from Thane, Amol Kirtikar from Mumbai North-West and Sanjay Patil from Mumbai North-East.
MVA’s Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) is yet to formally announce its candidates for the April-May general elections. However, Congress – also a part of the opposition’s grouping – declared its candidates for some of the seats, where there is no tiff with its alliance partners.
Meanwhile, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi chief Prakash Ambedkar, who was offered three seats by the MVA for the Lok Sabha polls, will soon be clearing his stand about joining the alliance group.
In response to Ambedkar’s demand of contesting from 27 seats, the MVA offered him three. According to sources, he had refused to take this offer following which negotiations came to a standstill.
Last week, the VBA chief had set a deadline of March 26 for the Uddhav camp to conclude alliance talks and give his party some clarity.
Earlier, Thackeray had accused the BJP of trying to “claim a Thackeray” to win in the upcoming general elections. The remark came after a meeting between MNS chief Raj Thackeray and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Speculations of the saffron camp aiming to forge an alliance with Raj Thackeray’s for the Lok Sabha polls to strengthen its position in Maharashtra have been doing the rounds.
With 48 Lok Sabha seats in the fray, the second highest after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra will go into polling in five phases starting from April 19.
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