Uddhav Thackeray’s early Mumbai North-West candidate declaration sparks coalition concerns

Uddhav Thackeray's candidate announcement for Mumbai North-West seat raises questions about coalition dharma and candidate credibility.

A day after Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray revealed his party’s candidate for the Mumbai North-West Lok Sabha seat, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam questioned whether this move violated ‘coalition dharma’ or was an intentional effort to portray his party negatively.

Despite the ongoing seat-sharing discussions among the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners, including Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Congress, Mr. Thackeray announced Amol Kirtikar as his party’s candidate.

Mr. Amol Kirtikar’s father, Gajanan Kirtikar, the current MP from the seat, is affiliated with the rival Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Mr. Nirupam, expressing concerns about the unilateral announcement, urged the Congress leadership to intervene and raised allegations against the announced candidate in connection with the ‘khichdi scam’, involving bribery during the COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts by the BMC.

“Chief of the leftover Shiv Sena announced his candidate as MVA nominee from Mumbai-North West. Despite having over two dozen meetings, the seat-sharing deal of MVA hasn’t been finalised yet. I am told that whatever 8 to 9 seats are pending, this constituency is one of them”, Mr. Nirupam said.

“Is this unilateral announcement a violation of the ‘coalition dharma’ or was it deliberately done to show the Congress in a poor light?” he asked.

The Congress leader contested unsuccessfully in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from the North-West seat and is hoping to contest from the same seat in the coming Lok Sabha polls.