MUMBAI: Shiv Sena (UBT) President and Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) ally Uddhav Thackeray arrived in Delhi on Tuesday and is expected to urge his alliance partners—Congress and NCP (SP)—to declare him as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections slated for October.Uddhav is scheduled to meet Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar as part of his three-day visit to the national capital.Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said that Thackeray will meet all the top leaders of the MVA to discuss strategy for the upcoming assembly polls.Referring to the MVA’s performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Raut said, “We want to replicate our performance in the state assembly elections and regain power. Therefore, this meeting among top leaders is crucial.”Notably, the MVA won 31 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra, while the NDA-led Mahayuti Alliance of the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar) won the remaining 17 seats.Meanwhile, sources within the Sena (UBT) camp say Uddhav Thackeray is eager to be declared the chief ministerial candidate soon.”Shiv Sena (UBT) may have won fewer seats than Congress and the NCP (SP) in the Lok Sabha, but no one can deny that Uddhav Thackeray was the face of the campaign, and his speeches resonated more with the public. The people of Maharashtra are eager to see Thackeray as chief minister again after his government was toppled by the BJP,” said a Shiv Sena (UBT) leader, requesting anonymity.”Declaring Thackeray the chief ministerial candidate would not only galvanise the party cadre but also the voters. This would provide a clearer choice between Uddhav Thackeray and the incumbent chief minister, Eknath Shinde, or Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Hence, MVA should not miss this opportunity to sway more voters to our side,” the Sena (UBT) leader added.Meanwhile, the former Maharashtra CM met with the AICC in-charge of Maharashtra, Ramesh Chennithala, on Tuesday and is expected to meet other party leaders on Wednesday.Chennithala confirmed that Thackeray’s meetings with Congress’s top leaders are scheduled, but discussions about the chief ministerial candidate isn’t on the meeting agenda and that official and unofficial discussions are underway among MVA partners. “Earlier in Mumbai, I met with Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray as well. We are meeting again in Delhi with top leaders. The current Maharashtra government is very corrupt, so we must work hard to oust it. We have yet to start discussions on seat-sharing, and the decision on the chief ministerial candidate has also not been made,” Chennithala said.
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