Accordingly shiv sena (UBT) leader sanjay raut on friday said his party would contest 23 of the 48 lok sabha seats in maharashtra, and the seat-sharing talks with the congress have to ”start from zero” as the latter had ‘not won any seat’ in the previous elections, a statement that drew a sharp response from the state Congress. The majority of the Sena MPs are now with the Eknath Shinde faction and the congress now happens to be the biggest party in the maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, state congress leaders Sanjay Nirupam and Milind Deora pointed out.Meanwhile the uddhav thackeray led shiv sena, sharad pawar faction of the congress PARTY' target='_blank' title='nationalist congress party-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW">nationalist congress party and congress are part of the MVA. Speaking to reporters, Raut said the shiv sena (UBT) leaders, including thackeray, have been holding talks with congress president mallikarjun Kharge, party leaders sonia gandhi and rahul gandhi and general secretary K C Venugopal over seat-sharing.Asked about state congress leaders pointing out that the Sena is no longer a united party, Raut said the congress did not split up, and yet it lost the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. “A party is tested on the ground. Our party workers are with us. Even if our party split, we won the Andheri assembly bypoll and you (the Congress) won the Kasba Peth assembly bypoll with our support,” Raut said. Deora, a former mumbai MP who is now a joint treasurer of the congress, said, “I want to tell sanjay raut that any alliance cannot move forward without consultation with the maharashtra congress leadership.” He also objected to Raut’s contention that despite losing 40 MLAs to the Shinde faction , the Sena (UBT) is the largest party in the MVA alliance.
