Samajwadi Party looks to expand its footprint in Maharashtra, demands 12 seats from Maha Vikas Aghadi

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], October 17 (ANI): As the seat sharing talks of Maha Vikas Aghadi are underway for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls, Samajwadi party has demanded 12 seats from the alliance.
Speaking to ANI, Samajwadi Party Maharashtra Chief Abu Azmi said that his post on X was not to express resentment but to remind the parties that the time is running away.
Azmi said, "At present only Congress, NCP-SCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) are holding meetings. Meetings with other smaller parties are still pending. I was reminding them through my tweet that it is getting very late. I had heard that Congress was going to announce something too, so I had told them to take us into confidence. There is no resentment in this, I just wanted to remind that the relations between Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav are also good."
"I am asking for 12 seats from the alliance. I will try to get that many seats," Abu Azmi added further.
In a post on X on Wednesday, the SP leader posted on X and said that it would be wrong it any party announces candidate without talking to Samajwadi Party.
"In Maharashtra, if any party of Mahavikas Aghadi, be it Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (SP), or Shiv Sena (UBT), releases the list of assembly candidates without talking to Samajwadi Party or taking them into confidence, it means that they do not consider Samajwadi Party as a part of Mahavikas Aghadi. It would be wrong for any party to announce candidates without talking to Samajwadi Party. Whereas the objective of Mahavikas Aghadi is to keep all secular parties together and fight against the communal government," he said.
"In these circumstances, I would like to take permission from our National President Akhilesh Yadav Ji that whatever be the result of the assembly elections in Maharashtra - Samajwadi Party would like to contest as many seats as possible in the assemblies where it is strong," he added.
Akhilesh Yadav also asserted that he is hoping to get more seats from the alliance.
"I am going Maharashtra tomorrow. Our effort will be to contest with the INDIA bloc. We have asked for seats. We had 2 MLAs, we hope that we will get more seats," the SP Chief said.
Earlier today, Maharashtra Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar said that doors of the alliance are not closed for the SP and all the problems will be solved within two days.
"No door of the Maha Vikas Aghadi is closed for Samajwadi party. Our first discussion has taken place. We will have seat sharing today and after discussing with them, we will solve it in two days," Wadettiwar said.
"In today's meeting, we will discuss about giving seats to Samajwadi Party. Like the agreement happened in UP with Samajwadi Party, same will happen in Maharashtra too," he added.
Assembly elections in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday (October 15, 2024). With this, the political parties have begun gearing up for an election that will be unprecedented in many ways.
In the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Congress and unified Shiv Sena had won 154 out of 288 seats as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition. However, this time around the Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar's NCP and Congress are in alliance to counter the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance.
In the Lok Sabha election held this year, MVA won 30 of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling alliance won 17. One seat went to an Independent candidate. (ANI)