Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said on Monday that the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra would discuss possible candidates for the office of chief minister only after the upcoming Assembly polls, reported The Hindu.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises mainly the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Congress. Elections to the 288-member House are expected to be held in November. The parties are also members of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level.

“Right now, our only goal is to form the government and oust the corrupt Bharatiya Janata Party regime,” Chennithala, the All India Congress Committee in-charge for Maharashtra, said.

The state’s ruling Mahayuti government comprises the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Nationalist Congress party faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Sharad Pawar, who leads the rival faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, had said on September 4 that there was no need for the Maha Vikas Aghadi to announce a chief ministerial candidate until after the Assembly elections.

In August, former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that he would support the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar)’s preferred candidate for the chief minister’s post.

Thackeray, however, said that the chief ministerial candidate should be decided at the earliest and urged his coalition partners to set aside personal ambitions in the interest of the state.

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader added that the Assembly polls will be a battle to safeguard Maharashtra’s self-respect, unlike the recent Lok Sabha elections that were about saving democracy and the Constitution.

In the general elections, the Uddhav Sena won nine seats in the state. The Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party won eight and the Congress won 13. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha constituencies.

From the Mahayuti alliance, the BJP won nine seats, the Shinde Sena won seven and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party group managed to win one seat.