Mumbai:Though the Maha Vikas Aghadi has not yet taken a final decision on the Lok Sabha seat allocation, Congress leader and former MP Sanjay Nirupam expressed his happiness over Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena's announcement of Amol Kirtikar's candidature for the North- West Mumbai Lok Sabha seat.
MVA, a coalition of Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) and Congress, is currently in discussions for a tie-up ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. He has shared a post about this on 'X' (Formerly Twitter). Sanjay Nirupam is likely to express his views after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra in Mumbai. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the rift over seats in the Mahavikas Aghadi continues.
In such a scenario, former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam has been asserting his claim for the Mumbai North-West Lok Sabha seat for the past several years. Meanwhile, on Saturday, Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray group chief Uddhav Thackeray announced the candidature of Amol Kirtikar for this seat. Hence, Sanjay Nirupam, who was aspiring for the seat, was displeased over Uddhav's decision.
Against this backdrop, Sanjay Nirupam posted on X and asked the leaders of the Congress as well as Shiv Sena about this. Not only this, he has also said that the Thackeray group is adopting pressure techniques on Congress. Sanjay Nirupam in his post on 'X' said, "Uddhav announced the Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate from the North-West Lok Sabha constituency prematurely. I have been getting calls about the announcement. How can this happen? Even after two dozen meetings of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the final decision on seat allocation has not been taken yet."
Also, the Congress colleagues, who participated in the seat allocation meeting, told me that the Mumbai North-West Lok Sabha seat is also one of the pending seats. How can the Shiv Sena candidate be announced in such a situation? Does this not violate the alliance rules? Or is such an act being done deliberately to discredit the Congress? The top leadership of Congress should immediately intervene in this regard.
He alleged Amol Kirtikar was involved in the Khichdi scam. In the wake of COVID-19, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation has undertaken a commendable programme of providing free food to migrant labourers. The proposed candidate of Shiv Sena is a scamser. How will the Congress and Shiv Sena workers promote this person whose case was being investigated by the ED? This is my humble question to the leadership of both parties. Amol Kirtikar is the son of Gajanan Kirtikar, the current MP of the Shinde group and has been accused of a Khichdi scam.
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