New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) After the recent poll debacle in Haryana, blamed partially on factional fighting, the Congress is bracing up to put its house in order and present a united face in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand where it seeks to win in alliance with its other INDIA bloc partners.

The Congress leadership does not want to take chances and has issued a stern warning to all its state leaders not to speak anything in public either against their party colleagues or any of the allies.

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The message of stern action in case of any violation has come from none other than Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi, who are learnt to have told all its leaders in Maharashtra to refrain from making any such public statements, during an internal meeting.

The seat-sharing talks between the three alliance partners of the INDIA bloc are on and sources said 80 per cent of the seats have been finalised, while deliberations are on for the remaining ones.

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Sources said the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance partners are going on a seat-to-seat basis.

The practice in the alliance has been to choose a chief ministerial candidate from the party getting the largest number of seats, they said.

However, the issue remains a sticky one. The party feels it has the right to the top post, considering the Congress is the largest party in the opposition in the state assembly currently, and its leaders are dropping hints that they are in the race.

Despite the setback in Haryana, the party unit is upbeat in Maharashtra on the performance of the MVA in Lok Sabha elections.

The party on Tuesday appointed division-wise AICC senior observers for the Maharashtra Assembly polls with Ashok Gehlot and G Parameshwara to look after the Mumbai and Konkan region and Sachin Pilot and Uttam Kumar Reddy to oversee the Marathwada region.

Bhupesh Baghel, Charanjit Singh Channi and Umang Singhar will look after the Vidarbha region (Amravati and Nagpur).

TS Singhdeo and M B Patil will take care of western Maharashtra. Syed Naseer Hussain and D Anasuya Seethakka have been appointed senior observers for North Maharashtra, the party said.

Mukul Wasnik and Avinash Pande have been appointed as Maharashtra state election senior coordinators.

The Congress is also likely to announce its guarantees in Maharashtra, as done in other states, in order to counter the BJP-led alliance.

The Congress-NCP(SP)-SS (UBT) alliance of MVA had won 31 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general elections, while the Congress only won 5 out of 10 seats in Haryana. The Congress had won 44 seats in 2019 assembly polls in Maharashtra, but seven MLAs have resigned.

"We are upbeat by the performance of the MVA in Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra and hope to win the state assembly this time. Our strike rate is much better and we will form our government," a senior Congress leader claimed.

The Congress currently has 37 MLAs, Shiv Sena (UBT) 16 and NCP (Sharad Pawar) 12, besides two for SP, one each for CPI-M and Peasants and Workers Party, in the Maharashtra assembly.

In Jharkhand, the party is banking on the support of its alliance partner Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) which romped home last time and is seeking to retain power.

The Congress will supplement the efforts of JMM and Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who hopes to cash in on public sympathy over his arrest and judicial custody in a corruption case.

As the Congress gets battle-ready for the next round of assembly polls, the opposition party also appointed three AICC senior observers for Jharkhand assembly elections -- Tariq Anwar, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu.

Soon after the announcement of assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Congress president Kharge targeted the BJP on inflation and alleged that in the last 10 and a half years, "Modiji has not helped in any let up of BJP's 'loot' even for 10 and a half seconds!".

"The politics of diversion will not work any longer. The public will vote on the basic issues," Kharge also said.

The Assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20, while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday.

The votes for the two states will be counted on November 23.

"There are 9.63 crore eligible voters in Maharashtra, while the number of eligible voters in Jharkhand is 2.6 crore," Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said at a press conference.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)