The opposition alliance must not be over-confident in Maharashtra and allocate seats to Left parties if it wants to win the upcoming state assembly polls, senior CPI(Marxist) leader Ashok Dhawale said.

In an interview with PTI, Dhawale said the Left parties are looking at getting around 20 seats out of 288.

Dhawale, who is the president of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and a member of CPI(M)'s Politburo, said the Left parties have a presence in all districts of Maharashtra barring a few, which will be important in the state where the difference of vote share between the NDA and INDIA bloc was just 0.4 per cent even though the latter won 29 seats.

"Left and secular parties are looking at fighting on around 20 of the 288 seats, many of these are ones that we have won earlier, and in areas where we are strong," Dhawale told PTI.

The CPI(M) will be fighting from Dahanu, a seat it has won in nine of the last 10 assembly elections since 1978, and Kalwan, where its candidate won in 2014, but lost by a margin of around 7,000 votes in 2019.

Apart from these two, among the seats that CPI(M) is keen on fighting, are Solapur City Central, where CPI(M) has had MLAs in past, Nashik West, and Akole, where they have been getting significant vote share.

Kinwat in Nanded, and Majalgaon in Beed district, both in Marathwada region, are also being claimed by the CPI(M).

The Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP), which has a strong base in the Raigad district, wants to contest from Sangole, Alibaug, Pen, Panvel, and Uran. It has a sitting MLA in Loha assembly seats.

Communist Party of India (CPI), meanwhile, wants to fight from Wani in the Vidarbha region, Shirpur, Aurangabad Central and Hingna, while Satyashodhak Communist Party, another Left party in Maharashtra, wants to fight Sakri seat.

Samajwadi Party, which participated in recent meetings held by the Left parties, wants to fight from some seats in Mumbai, Bhiwandi and Malegaon districts.

Dhawale said the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the opposition alliance, must not be overconfident, even though they won 29 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats.

"The numbers hide the fact that the difference in vote share is very little, so it was very close," he said.

He said that Congress lost in Haryana despite a predicted win because it failed to bring along alliance partners.

"In Haryana, there were other factors, but one factor was lack of inclusiveness. Parties like SP and AAP could have been given some seats," he said.

In the LS polls held earlier in the year, the MVA — Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), and the Left parties — got around 44 per cent votes, while the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP got 43.6 per cent votes.

Dhawale also alleged that the recently launched Ladli Behna scheme and schemes for construction workers by the NDA were mere pre-poll sops.

He said taking along the Left parties, which has a dedicated cadre, will help the alliance.

"Left parties have their pockets of influence, and there are supporters across Maharashtra. The CPI(M) has district units in over 32 districts and has a vote share ranging from 5,000 to 10,000, and even up to 50,000 in certain areas. It will strengthen the alliance," he said.

He also stressed that the Left cadre cannot be bought.

Asked if going with a party like Shiv Sena (UBT), which has a Hindutva ideology, may impact the Left voters, he said people have already seen Uddhav Thackeray's work as a chief minister and it is not an issue anymore.

"It was an issue in the beginning, but in the two and a half years when Uddhav Thackeray was the chief minister, people have seen his performance. He took a balanced position," he said.

In the upcoming polls, the MVA is challenging the ruling NDA government, which took over after several MLAs from Thackeray's Shiv Sena and found the support of the breakway faction of Sharad Pawar's NCP.

Seat-sharing talks among the MVA remain stuck, with Thackeray warning on Friday that it must not reach a breaking point, after which Congress rushed party leader Ramesh Chennithala to Mumbai to hold talks with partners.

A convention of 'progressive parties', which includes the Left parties and the SP, was held in Pune on October 16, where the parties stressed that MVA should adopt an "inclusive approach" in seat-sharing and give these parties their just share.

Assembly polls will be held in Maharashtra on November 20, and results will be announced on November 23.

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