Maharashtra: Congress brainstorming session underway in Mumbai ahead of Assembly polls

Mumbai: The Congress core committee meeting is underway at Garware Club in Mumbai.
Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole and all the major leaders of the state, including Balasaheb Thorat, Vijay Wadettiwar, Leader of Opposition Prithviraj Chavan, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Mukul Wasnik and Avinash Pandey are present in the meeting.
The crucial meeting in Mumbai is being held to chart out a strategy for the upcoming assembly polls in Maharashtra.
In the recent parliamentary elections, Congress emerged as the largest party in the state, with 13 Lok Sabha MPs, and along with Shiv Sena UBT's 9 and the NCP (Pawar)'s 8 MPs, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won 30 seats out of the total number of 48 constituencies in Maharashtra.
According to a top party leader, not only the strategy for the assembly polls but also the party's stand in the alliance will be discussed, as Congress is the largest party in MVA in the Maharashtra Assembly, having 38 MLAs.
The other two parties, NCP and Shiv Sena, have seen a split after the last assembly polls and their numbers have reduced, so the party will be discussing the regions, seats and numbers for the polls too, the leader said.
The first round of meetings will be held at the Wankhede Stadium Conference Hall in the morning and the second session of the meeting will be held in the party office at Tilak Bhawan post lunch, the leader added. Maharashtra has been a success story in the recent Lok Sabha polls for Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), where they have won 30 seats out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Congress wants to have a big share of the Assembly polls and is eyeing the winnable seats in regions like Vidharba, North Maharashtra, and Marathwada, where they have performed well.
INDIA bloc left the NDA behind in Western Maharastra as it got 47.8 per cent of the vote while NDA got 43.2 per cent of the total vote polled; in the Vidarbha region, INDIA bloc got 46 per cent of the vote while NDA got 37.10 per cent.
In Marathwada, the INDIA bloc got 44.7 per cent and NDA got 29.00 per cent of the total votes polled.