Pune/Mumbai: State Congress chief Harshwardan Sapkal on Friday said if Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray recontests the legislative council poll, his party will support his candidature, even as Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut asserted that were Thackeray to enter the fray, his election would be unopposed.The election for nine seats of the legislative council will take place on May 12 and as per the existing strength of the alliances, eight seats are expected to go to BJP-led Mahayuti and one to MVA. While Thackeray’s name was making the rounds in MVA, Sapkal visited Delhi to meet his party’s senior functionaries to discuss the matter. “Uddhav Thackeray is a face of MVA and our party will support his candidature if he is ready to contest. However, senior members of MVA will have to sit together and finalise the decision for the one seat for which elections will be held,” Sapkal said. Raut, too, suggested that there needs to be consensus. “As per my understanding, if former CM Uddhav Thackeray is a candidate again, this election can be held unopposed. Now, we will sit in and decide in one to two days what stand to take as MVA, especially from Shiv Sena (UBT),” Raut said. Political observers said that Raut was hinting that Uddhav could be a candidate for the MLC polls.Some Congress members, however, were not in favour of backing Thackeray. They felt the party should stake its claim to the sole seat. They said the party had to already sacrifice the Rajya Sabha seat for the recently held election and if it gives away the council seat, too, to another alliance partner, its position will weaken in the state. In the Rajya Sabha election, MVA had a seat in its quota as per the strength. The alliance backed NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, leading to his election. Amid the disagreements, Sapkal said some discussions within Congress will be held soon. “As a party, we will have to hold talks about the present and future elections. We will come to a consensus. Similarly, we will have to hold discussions with our MVA partners for the council polls.”
