Amidst the seat dispute, Rahul Gandhi spoke to Uddhav Thackeray on phone for an hour.

Mumbai:

As the Congress is in intense seat talks with India Bloc allies ahead of the national elections, Rahul Gandhi called up Uddhav Thackeray yesterday to discuss the impasse on eight of the 48 seats in Maharashtra.

Rahul Gandhi, who is in the middle of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, reportedly spoke to the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader for an hour.

Sources say that Congress wants to contest elections on three of the six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai – Mumbai South Central, Mumbai North Central and Mumbai North West. Uddhav Thackeray reportedly wants to contest 18 Lok Sabha seats in the state, including four in Mumbai – Mumbai South, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North East and Mumbai South Central.

For the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Congress’s Maha Vikas Aghadi, seat talks are completely uncharted territory as the parties formed an ideologically mismatched alliance after the last Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The three have worked out an agreement on about 40 seats but negotiators are stuck on eight seats.

The undivided Shiv Sena contested 22 out of 48 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and won 18, including three seats in Mumbai.

Uddhav Thackeray’s party ended its 25-year alliance with the BJP months later after they failed to agree on power-sharing terms following the Maharashtra state elections.

After the split of Shiv Sena, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government fell and Eknath Shinde’s faction formed a new government with the BJP.

Earlier this year, Sharad Pawar’s NCP faced a similar breakdown when the veteran leader’s nephew Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP coalition government.

The Congress fears a similar exodus in Maharashtra after two of its key leaders, former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Milind Deora, joined the BJP.

The defection has complicated seat talks for Maharashtra’s opposition allies.

Sources say that after defection in Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s party wants a bigger share in the seats of Mumbai.

However, sources say that Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge are all committed to making it a success, knowing that for each party, it is a fight for survival.

The Congress recently sealed a difficult seat-sharing deal with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.

The party has also redoubled efforts to seal a deal with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has refused to give up more than five of her state’s 42 seats.