Shiv Sena, BJP reach seat-sharing pact

After seven rounds of talks over the period of one and half months, the Shiv Sena (SS) and the BJP finally managed to hammer out their differences and officially declare their alliance for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP and the SS will contest 26 and 22 seats, respectively.

Without wasting further time, SS General Secretary Subhash Desai and BJP’s State Unit General Secretary Vinod Tavde announced the alliance in a hurriedly called press conference. Although BJP succeeded in retaining the number of seats which it had contested in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, it had to give up three out of four contentious seats — South Mumbai, Yavatmal-Washim and Kalyan to the SS. BJP will contest from the Jalgaon seat.

Talks between these two old allies had never stretched so long. A section of the BJP pointed out that earlier Pramod Mahajan used to be involved in the talks and Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray, too, took personal interest. “The two leaders shared excellent rapport but now no such personal rapport exists between the present leadership of the two parties,” a senior BJP leader said.

There were other factors responsible for the delay like the delimitation of constituencies, which made the task of seat sharing difficult. In Vidarbha, Yavatamal and Washim constituencies have got merged and while in Yavatmal there is a sitting BJP MP, in Washim there is a sitting Sena MP, he pointed out.

And the thinking within a section of people who are considered to be confidants of the party’s working president Uddhav Thackeray, is that the Sena-BJP alliance has outlived its utility and the party does not have any chance of growth by allying with the BJP and hence they should explore new options. Wooing NCP chief Sharad Pawar was also the reason behind delay in the completion of talks, he said.

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat gave a stern message to Pawar: “He cannot think of support from the Third Front if he aspires to be prime minister in case NCP ties up with Sena.”