 "BJP wants Sena to review seat sharing")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers to be united in working for a Congress-free Maharashtra in the upcoming Assembly elections, but his party’s 25-year-old alliance with Shiv Sena seems to be under stress.
During his visit to Mumbai earlier this week, Modi met the BJP’s state leadership and also addressed party workers. Last week, party president Amit Shah had also held meetings with several groups of party workers during his visit to Nagpur.
According to sources, the BJP’s state leadership is of the view that the party’s seat-sharing formula with the Shiv Sena should be retailored.
Currently, the Sena-BJP alliance rests on the BJP contesting more seats in the Lok Sabha elections while Sena getting more of the seats in the Assembly polls. This has also meant that Sena gets to have the chief ministerial post. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP contested 24 of Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, winning 23 of these, while Sena fielded its candidates on 20-seats and bagged 18.
However, during the Lok Sabha elections, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance also included smaller parties such as Raju Shetty’s Swabhimani Paksha, Republican Party of India (A), and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha. Put together, these parties contested four seats, with only Shetty winning his seat.
The Assembly formula rests on the BJP contesting 119 seats while Sena fielding its candidates on 169 seats in the 288-seat Assembly. However, the upcoming Assembly elections would be different as the BJP-Sena alliance would need to accommodate the smaller parties, including Maratha leader Vinayak Mete’s Shiv Sangram..
During his visit to Mumbai earlier this week, Modi met the BJP’s state leadership and also addressed party workers. Last week, party president Amit Shah had also held meetings with several groups of party workers during his visit to Nagpur.
According to sources, the BJP’s state leadership is of the view that the party’s seat-sharing formula with the Shiv Sena should be retailored.
Currently, the Sena-BJP alliance rests on the BJP contesting more seats in the Lok Sabha elections while Sena getting more of the seats in the Assembly polls. This has also meant that Sena gets to have the chief ministerial post. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP contested 24 of Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, winning 23 of these, while Sena fielded its candidates on 20-seats and bagged 18.
However, during the Lok Sabha elections, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance also included smaller parties such as Raju Shetty’s Swabhimani Paksha, Republican Party of India (A), and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha. Put together, these parties contested four seats, with only Shetty winning his seat.
The Assembly formula rests on the BJP contesting 119 seats while Sena fielding its candidates on 169 seats in the 288-seat Assembly. However, the upcoming Assembly elections would be different as the BJP-Sena alliance would need to accommodate the smaller parties, including Maratha leader Vinayak Mete’s Shiv Sangram..
According to sources, Shiv Sena hasn't shown willingness to concede seats from its share of seats and BJP is apprehensive it might have to surrender more seats from its set of 119-seats. The BJP wants central leadership to convince the Sena to surrender at least a dozen seats for the pool of seats to be shared with their smaller allies.
Sources said the leadership of the two parties would soon be in talks about seat sharing and were confident of working out a solution. The BJP leaders had earlier publicly argued about the chief ministerial post going to BJP's Maratha leader Gopinath Munde. However, Munde's passing away seems to have changed that equation. The BJP has been more accommodating of Sena's concerns like assuring its smaller partner that it wouldn't accept Narayan Rane into its fold.