The impending Pune Lok Sabha bypoll has brought into the open tensions over seat-sharing among the allies of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi — the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) — ahead of the 2024 general election.
With 48 seats up for grabs in Maharashtra, the top leadership of the three parties had said ‘elective merit’ will be the watchword while allocating seats.
However, NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s recent remark that the stronger party ought to contest from Pune has irked the Congress, which has won the seat 10 out of the 17 it has gone to the polls. Mr. Pawar pointed out the abysmal record of the Congress in Pune in the civic and Assembly polls, and the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when it lost to the BJP by over three lakh votes.
