While their parties are still talking about seat sharing, two leaders from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)—state Congress president Nana Patole and Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Sanjay Raut—seemed to be at loggerheads. It is learnt that the fight has reached such a stage that the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has asked for Patole’s absence from the next round of negotiations. The flare-up led Sena (UBT) chief Thackeray to say later in the day, “It happens when many parties are together. There was nothing like a brawl or anything of that sort. Things should not be stretched till they fall apart.”

The backdrop was what had happened early Friday. Earlier in the day, Raut questioned the decision-making ability of the state Congress leadership (read Patole). “They approach Delhi for everything even as there is a little time left before nominations. It should happen quickly here in Maharashtra, not in Delhi,” he said, adding that he had a word with the Congress top leadership, including Mallikarjun Kharage and K C Venugopal about the stalemate, and would be discussing the same with Rahul Gandhi as well.