Little time left, Congress should decide seats: Sanjay Raut on Maharashtra polls

The MVA, comprising the Congress, Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, has also decided to release a list of the disputed seats to the heads of each party of the alliance to take a final decision on them.

In Short

• Maha Vikas Aghadi reached consensus on 200 seats in Maharashtra
• Congress's first list of candidates expected on October 20
• Sanjay Raut says some seats are such that all MVA parties are eyeing

With about a month remaining for Maharashtra to go to Assembly polls, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday said that the Congress needs to quickly make up its mind on its choice of seats as time is running out.

Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress are part of the INDIA bloc alliance and the Mahavikas Aghadi alliance (MVA) in Maharashtra.

Raut said that he has spoken to senior Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Mukul Vasnik, Ramesh Chennithalla, and he will also speak to Rahul Gandhi about the issue.

"There are 200 seats on which the decision has been taken and some seats on which we have been unable to take a decision. We don't have too much time at hand and I feel that Congress leaders here are unable to take decisions as they have to keep sending lists to Delhi for approval and then the discussion happens. But the time for that has passed. We want this decision to be taken at the earliest", Raut said while speaking to the media in Mumbai.

There are some seats on which all three parties are staking claim. So discussions were held with the Congress high command, Raut added.

Raut said that he spoke to Uddhav Thackeray and had updated him about the developments. "He (Uddhav) has given some instructions which I will follow, and I am sure this issue will be sorted out", Raut said.

"While conversations between Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar led NCP go on smoothly, Congress has its own system, and we have requested them that they should place a system here so that we can finalise the list," he added.

Meanwhile, Raut said that since the Shiv Sena offered its winning seats to the grand old party in the Lok Sabha elections, they now expect it to reciprocate in the Assembly polls.

"Everyone wants to expand their party and make it win. But if a party has given some seats which they won and so, there is nothing wrong in expecting that they should be given one or two seats more as compensation and that is what is happening in Amravati", Raut added.

On Thursday, sources told India Today TV that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance had reached consensus on 260 seats in the state and there is a dispute over the remaining 28 seats.

The MVA, comprising the Congress, Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, has also decided to release a list of the disputed seats to the heads of each party of the alliance to take a final decision on them.

Sanjay Raut, Maharashtra Congress leaders Nana Patole, Vijay Wadettiwar, Satej Patil, senior NCP leader Jitendra Awhad among others attended an MVA meeting to discuss seat-sharing on Thursday.

Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar said that the first list of the party candidates will be released on October 20.