Sharad Pawar's big prediction for Maharashtra assembly polls: 'MVA will win 225 seats'

Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday predicted that the Opposition will win 225 of 288 seats in upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra. In Maharashtra, the main opposition grouping is the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, the Congress, and Sharad Pawar's NCP. 

The MVA stunned the ruling Mahayuti - which comprises BJP, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar's NCP - by winning 30 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the 2024 polls.

Addressing party workers, Sharad Pawar said the opposition won just six of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in 2019, but this figure rose to 31 in 2024. "Maharashtra is in the wrong hands. In the Lok Sabha polls, people have given results that indicate change. The picture is that the opposition will win 225 of the 288 seats in the (Maharashtra) assembly polls," Pawar said.

The MVA is confident of winning the upcoming assembly elections following its performance in the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP-Sena, which had won 41 seats in 2019, was reduced to just 17 in 2024. 

Last month, NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar claimed that the BJP may want Ajit Pawar's NCP to contest the elections separately to eat into the Opposition's votes. He said the saffron party might offer Ajit Pawar only 20 of the 288 assembly seats, and the latter could then walk out of the ruling alliance. 

"To keep Ajit Pawar out may be a strategy of the BJP, or both BJP and Ajit Pawar group. He may contest separately to divide the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's votes, especially those of NCP (SP). But the people and the MLAs in Ajit Pawar's party are not fools," he said. 

Rohit, however, said that the people have shown in the Lok Sabha elections that they would not entertain "vote cutters". 

(With inputs from PTI)