'We sacrificed 3 Lok Sabha seats for Congress; they must remember our contribution', says Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut ahead of Maharashtra assembly elections

MUMBAI: Coming out against claims by Congress' Balasaheb Thorat on the next state CM from Congress, Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut said that at a juncture when no decision has been taken, it is wrong on the part of the CLP leader to stake claim to the CM's post. He said, "There are three major parties in the MVA, we will fight the elections together. If one is making claims of being a younger brother, elder brother or beloved brother, they will know the real picture in Maharashtra in the future. The stand of senior leaders of the Congress is clear. Congress got a few more seats in the Lok Sabha. But if they feel that because of this they are big brothers now, they should realise how much Shiv Sena (UBT) has contributed in increasing their seats. They must study this," he said.

He added, "Congress's Ramesh Chennithala has said that in MVA, there is no younger or bigger brother. We gave the Kolhapur seat to Congress which we would have won. Ramtek too we gave them, Amravati was our stronghold and they won. So they won these seats because of Sena (UBT). If they have forgotten this, this is not right."

Patole, however, took a dig at Raut, saying one should not too listen to Raut too much.

Raut further said, "All three parties will jointly contest assembly elections. Seat allocation for Lok Sabha elections was very easy. Because then we were thinking of only 48 seats. But now we have to allocate 288 seats for the assembly elections. There are three major parties in MVA. We also have smaller allies and our stand is to accommodate all of them. MVA's senior functionaries Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Nana Patole, all will try to include our allies in MVA and we will succeed in that. The Third Front is always created to help the ruling party. So this is being done only to divide opposition votes."

A week ago, Sharad Pawar had said any decision on the CM's post would be taken jointly by parties in the MVA.


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