PUNE: Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Jayant Patil said on Friday that, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) consisting of his party, the Congress party and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), will bag ‘more than 170 seats’ in the Maharashtra assembly elections to the 288-member legislative assembly are likely to be held in later this year.

“Our alliance will win over 170 seats as the people of the state detest betrayal and cheating. The next government will be ours and we will provide good governance with concrete and long-term welfare schemes,” he said at his party's 'Shiv Swarajya Yatra' in Junnar and Manchar in Pune district. MVA's confidence may also come from the fact that in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the alliance performed much better than the Mahayuti alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), and NCP (Ajit Pawar) winning 30 of the state's 48 parliamentary seats, and the Mahayuti winning only 17 seats.

Patil's confidence may also be stemming from the fact that a pre-election survey done by the MVA suggested that bolstered by their earlier success in the Lok Sabha polls, the alliance may win around 165 seats in the Maharashtra assembly elections, and alliance parties could be seeing positive outcomes in Nagpur, Amravati, Marathwada, and Western Maharashtra although according to the survey, it could face challenges in Mumbai, Konkan, and North Maharashtra assembly constituencies.

The 2019 assembly polls were contested and won by the BJP-Shiv Sena as the ruling alliance, however, due to a standoff on the chief minister's claims there was a split and they went their separate ways, while the Sena partnered with the Congress and NCP to birth the MVA, and party supremo Uddhav Thackeray took over as chief minister and BJP decided to sit in opposition. However, in June 2022, Sena's Eknath Shinde rebelled against Thackeray, and split the party, causing the MVA government to collapse after which with the BJP's support, Shinde became chief minister, a post he continues to hold to date. 

The Election Commission also recognised his faction as the ‘real’ Shiv Sena, while the Thackeray-led group functions as Shiv Sena (UBT). In July of next year, Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, did the same in the NCP and became deputy chief minister in Maharashtra's BJP-Shinde Sena government. Here, too, the Ajit faction is the ‘real’ NCP, while the Sharad group is called NCP (SP). 

The 2019 assembly polls were contested and won by the BJP-Shiv Sena as the ruling alliance, however, due to a standoff on the chief minister’s claims there was a split and they went their separate ways, while the Sena partnered with the Congress and NCP to birth the MVA, and party supremo Uddhav Thackeray took over as chief minister and BJP decided to sit in opposition. However, in June 2022, Sena’s Eknath Shinde rebelled against Thackeray, and split the party, causing the MVA government to collapse after which with the BJP’s support, Shinde became chief minister, a post he continues to hold to date. 

Election Commission recognised his faction as the ‘real’ Shiv Sena, while Thackeray-led group as Shiv Sena (UBT). In July of next year, Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, also split the NCP and joined the Shinde government as the Dy CM.