Mumbai, Oct 14 (IANS): In the wake of the Haryana results, prominent Left and progressive parties have called upon the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to adopt an ‘inclusive’ approach to seat-sharing along with pro-people policies ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
In a run-up to the polls, the progressive parties held a meeting in Mumbai and will now have a grand state-level convention in Nashik on October 16, to be attended by thousands of activists from across the state, said CPI (M) leader Ashok Dhawale.
He said that the Nashik Convention will remind the MVA that although it bagged 31 out of the 48 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Maharashtra, the difference in voting percentage between the MVA and NDA was wafer-thin - barely 0.4 per cent.
“While the MVA bagged 44 per cent of the vote share with the broad support of all the anti-RSS-Bharatiya Janata Party forces, the NDA secured 43.6 per cent. This means that the MVA needs to take some drastic inclusive and comprehensive measures to ensure Maharashtra doesn’t end up the Haryana way,” warned Dhawale.
This would necessitate the MVA-INDIA bloc to announce alternative pro-masses policies and include all the progressive parties in the seat-sharing arrangements if it hopes to defeat the ruling MahaYuti alliance.
For this purpose, the progressive parties shall conduct negotiations with the MVA and ensure that they are given a suitable share of the 288 seats in the state Assembly, and the opposition bloc emerges stronger after the polls.
They include Samajwadi state President Abu Asim Azmi, Peasants and Workers Party President Jayant Patil, CPI chief Bhalchandra Kango and CPI(M)’s Dhawale.
The group of progressive parties, including many which are with the opposition alliance in the state and the centre, comprise CPI, CPI(M), PWP, SP and Satyashodhak Community Party.
It may be recalled that in the LS polls, the MVA allies Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (SP)-Shiv Sena (UBT) had contested all the seats with the quiet support of the progressive parties which were not allotted a single seat to fight.