Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday reiterated his willingness to back the chief ministerial candidate picked by his party’s allies, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), to “save” Maharashtra, The Hindu reported.

The three parties are part of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition in the state, where Assembly elections are expected to be held soon. The parties are also members of the INDIA bloc at the national level.

The Election Commission has not yet announced a poll schedule for Maharashtra.

Thackeray had said in August that he would support the coalition’s preferred chief ministerial candidate but emphasised the need to select one at the outset, instead of waiting to see which party wins more seats in the election.

On Tuesday, Thackeray’s party colleague Sanjay Raut urged the Maha Vikas Aghadi to learn from the Congress’s defeat in the Haryana Assembly elections and declare a chief ministerial candidate for Maharashtra, reported The Indian Express.

Also read: Five reasons for the BJP’s unprecedented third-time win in Haryana

Raut’s statement came hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Haryana polls, clinching 48 seats in the 90-member Assembly. This was an increase from the 40 seats won by the Hindutva party in the 2019 polls.

The Congress won 37 seats in Haryana on Tuesday.

“There is a strong lesson to be learnt from the defeat of Congress in Haryana,” Raut told The Indian Express. “The MVA [Maha Vikas Aghadi] and Congress should take a cue from it and declare a CM [chief minister] face.”

He added that it was important to name a potential chief minister to avoid confusing voters during campaigning.

There was a choice between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the prime ministerial post during the recent Lok Sabha elections, Raut said. “People of Maharashtra rejected Modi and favoured Rahul.”

In the general elections, Thackeray’s Sena won nine seats in Maharashtra. The Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party won eight seats while the Congress emerged as the largest party in the state with 13 seats. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha constituencies.

In contrast, the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction won seven seats, the BJP won nine seats and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party group won a single seat.

The three parties are constituents of the state’s ruling Mahayuti alliance and members of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre.