Thackeray, Pawar to join Kharge for Rajiv Gandhi’s 80th birth anniversary in Mumbai

Mumbai, Aug 19 (IANS) The Maharashtra and Mumbai Congress have jointly planned a grand celebration of the 80th birth anniversary of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a special event at Shanmukhananda Auditorium here on Tuesday, party officials said.

The programme, organised by the state and city units, shall be attended by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, along with top party leaders from the state and other parts of the country.

The state Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) President and ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray, besides representatives of other allies, shall join the mega-event.

This will be the first joint meeting here of the three top MVA constituent leaders – Kharge, Pawar and Thackeray – after the 2024 general elections for 48 LS seats in which they unitedly put up a spectacular performance.

However, the late Rajiv Gandhi’s son and now Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi is not expected to come for the celebrations here as he will be busy with other events in New Delhi, a party leader said.

Tuesday’s meeting of the Kharge-Pawar-Thackeray trio is described as crucial since it is coming ahead of the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections and the leaders could hold informal discussions on the same.

They will take the opportunity to iron out certain sharp differences facing the three allies – issues like the ‘CM face’, the prickly seat distribution, claims and counter-claims over certain constituencies in Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune and other important centres, etc.

In the Lok Sabha polls, of the total 48 constituencies, the three parties bagged 32 seats, comprising Congress (13), Shiv Sena’s (UBT) 9 and NCP’s (SP) 8, besides one independent who is now supporting the MVA; while the ruling MahaYuti was relegated backward with just 17 wins.

For the looming state Assembly polls, the MVA hopes to repeat the Lok Sabha ‘magic’ and is confident of bagging between 170-200 of the total 288 seats in the Legislative Assembly – while the ruling MahaYuti of Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party has trashed the Opposition’s claims.

State Congress President Nana Patole, Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad, Leader of Opposition in Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar, Congress Legislature Party Leader Balasaheb Thorat, Congress Legislative Council Group Leader Satej Patil, AICC General Secretary Ramesh Chennithala, and other invitees will also attend the event on Tuesday.

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