Sharad Pawar says Congress, NCP and Thackeray-led Sena will contest upcoming elections together

Days after Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) forged an alliance, NCP leader Sharad Pawar said that so far no talks were held among the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents about taking the VBA on board.

According to a report of PTI, Pawar said the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Thackeray-led Sena will contest the upcoming elections together.

Responding to a query about the Sena (UBT) and VBA's alliance, the former Union minister said, No talks were held (in the MVA) regarding Prakash Ambedkar's VBA ahead of the elections. We do not know what is going on between the two parties...we will not discuss anything over it.

Congress, NCP and Thackeray-led Sena will together contest upcoming elections. We have not held any discussion with Ambedkar, he said.

The NCP and Thackeray-led Sena are part of the MVA along with the Congress. The three-party alliance was in power from 2019 till the end of June last year. The government led by Thackeray collapsed following a rebellion by his party's senior leader Eknath Shinde and his supporting MLAs, who joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and came to power.