In Maharashtra, voting for all 48 Lok Sabha seats has been completed. In the fifth phase, voting concluded for all seats in the state. Now, all attention is focused on the election results on June 4. A few months after the Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra will have its Assembly elections, likely by October. In this context, the constituent parties of the Mahayuti alliance have already begun their preparations. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a member of the Mahayuti, is holding an important meeting in Mumbai today. During this meeting, senior party leader Chhagan Bhujbal made a significant demand to Ajit Pawar.
In the Lok Sabha elections, the NCP received the fewest seats within the Mahayuti alliance. The seat allocation in 2019 was based on the number of seats each party won previously. Based on this criterion, the NCP was allotted fewer seats. Hence, at today's meeting in Mumbai, Chhagan Bhujbal made a strong demand to Ajit Pawar. Bhujbal stated that the same seat allocation formula used for the Lok Sabha should not be applied to the Assembly elections. "When we joined the Mahayuti, they promised us 80-90 seats. The NCP should get a fair share in the Assembly elections," Bhujbal asserted.
"We don't want the same struggle for seat allocation in the Assembly elections as we had in the Lok Sabha elections. We need to clearly communicate that we want a fair number of seats. If we get 80-90 seats, we can win 50-60 of them. It shouldn’t be a case of we taking 50 because we have 50 seats in assembly. So, we need to ensure our share is secured now," Bhujbal emphasized.
During the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, NCP candidates contested in only 4 constituencies like Baramati, Shirur, Raigad, and Dharashiv.