Sharad Pawar  

Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress sealed a deal in Maharashtra for the national election on a 22-26 basis, leaving the Ahmednagar seat to the NCP. Sources said Patil senior lobbied hard with Pawar to allow his son Sujay Vikhe Patil to contest from that seat, but an unrelenting Pawar ensured that Patil junior takes the final call of quitting the Congress

The body language of the Mahagathbandhan leaders — admittedly, we are going by the pictures and clips available on the internet — was anything but inspiring, as an obvious sense of desperation and disparateness pervaded the atmosphere

TDP president Chandrababu Naidu also met National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The Sharad Pawar-led party referred to the state's existing 'Mahatma Phule Janarogya Yojana', which ensures a total of 2.2 crores below poverty line (BPL) families.