Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu during a press conference for the announcement of the schedule of elections to the Legislative Assemblies of Jharkhand and Maharashtra, in New Delhi, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. The Maharashtra elections will be held on November 20, while Jharkhand elections will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20; the results for both states will be declared on November 23.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: As the I.N.D.I.A. bloc prepares for the crucial electoral battle in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Left parties are hoping to get a higher seat share in the two states this time.
At present, the CPI(M) and Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) have one MLA each in the Maharashtra assembly. This time, however, the Left parties are keen to contest at least 12 seats- Dahanu, Kalwan, Solapur City Central, Nashik West, Akole, Kinwat, Pathri, Majalgaon, Dindori, Igatpuri, Vikramgad, and Shahapur, according to sources.
A CPI(M) leader said there has been a feeling among the Left parties that they are not being given enough seats to fight as a part of the opposition bloc.
"Giving more seats to Left parties will strengthen the I.N.D.I.A. bloc. The Left organisations have been working on the ground, and it will augment Maha Vikas Aghadi's strength," said the leader who did not want to be named.
"Even in the Lok Sabha polls, we were looking at fighting at least one seat, but we were not given any seat to fight in the state as a part of the alliance," the leader said.
On October 13, leaders from the CPI(M), CPI, PWP, Satyashodhak Communist Party (SCP), as well a Samajwadi Party, an I.N.D.I.A. bloc party that has two MLAs in Maharashtra, held a meeting in Mumbai over the upcoming polls, and a state-level convention is being held at Nashik on Wednesday.
In a statement announcing the Nashik Convention, Left parties reminded the MVA that although it won 31 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 elections in Maharashtra with the broad support of all anti-BJP-RSS forces in the state, the difference in the voting percentage between the MVA and the NDA in the state in that election was merely 0.4 per cent -- 44 per cent to MVA, and 43.6 per cent to NDA.
It also cautioned that the MVA should take inclusive and comprehensive steps to ensure that the coming Maharashtra assembly elections do not go the "Haryana way".
In Jharkhand, where the CPI(M), CPI, and CPI (ML) Liberation are the main Left parties in alliance with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the INDIA bloc is looking at fighting the polls together. The recent merger of the Marxist Co-ordination Committee (MCC) with the CPI(ML) Liberation has also augmented the force for the Left, a leader said.
In the 2019 Assembly election, the JMM had contested 43 seats and won 30, the Congress contested 31 and won 16. RJD and CPI(ML) have one MLA each.
The NDA has 30 seats in the 81-member assembly, with the BJP having 24 MLAs.