Mahayuti infighting continues as NCP targets Sena MLA for council poll loss

“Sunetra Pawar initiated a meeting of BJP and NCP workers to sort out any pending issues among them. She called [BJP minister] Chandrakant Patil for this meeting. Talks about the elections continued until the day of filing nominations. If these talks had taken place earlier, we could have had enough time for planning and executing our election strategy,” Patil said.

After the final result was announced on Thursday, the BJP, which leads the Mahayuti alliance, accused the Shiv Sena of non-cooperation during the polls and undermining the coalition.

Maharashtra BJP chief spokesperson Navnath Ban alleged that the Shiv Sena had failed to fulfil its alliance obligations and accused Sattar of campaigning against the NCP candidate in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, formerly Aurangabad.

Speaking to reporters in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar later in the day, Sattar admitted that he had campaigned against Chavan. “Our party leader and Minister Sanjay Shirsat told us that we will not support Satish Chavan, so I campaigned against him,” said the MLA from Sillod in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district.

Of the five graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies that went to biennial polls, the Opposition MVA won three, while the Mahayuti alliance secured two. Polling was held in the Pune graduates’, Nagpur graduates’, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) graduates’, Pune teachers’ and Amravati teachers’ constituencies.

With PTI inputs