The BJP has conveyed to its ally Shiv Sena that it deserves to contest more than half seats in Assembly elections in Maharashtra in the light of its better performance in 2014 lok Sabha polls and improved vote share.
A section in the BJP is favouring that the BJP should have an upper hand in seat-sharing negotiations vis-à-vis Shiv Sena to contest at least half of the seats ahead of the State Assembly elections in October.
According to sources, as in the lok Sabha, BJP will insist with Shiv Sena that the latter be a junior partner in the poll alliance. In the past, the BJP used to contest more lok Sabha seats Shiv Sena would be dominant partner in the Assembly polls. The mood in the BJP is now to have a big-brother role at the Centre as also in the State Assembly.
Shiv Sena had contested 171 and BJP 117 seats in 2009 in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena has tried "to lead the alliance" by its unilateral announcement that its chief Uddhav Thackeray would be the CM candidate of the alliance. The BJP is of the view that the leadership in the State would go to the party winning majority seats in the Assembly.
The BJP president Amit Shah has taken a line that the party with greater clout with voters (lok Sabha poll) should have better share of seat allocation in state elections.BJP may even go alone in Haryana if its ally Haryana Janhit Congress does not drastically scale down its demand for half of the 90 seats in the state assembly . The BJP does not want to part with more than 15 to 20 seats in Haryana, according to party sources.
But Maharashtra, BJP central leaders, however, do not want to jettison its longest ally soon after the lok Sabha poll victory and continue, for now, with "mahayukti — the Sena-BJP, RPI, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana and the Rashtriya Samaj Party — alliance.The party high-command, however, "supports a tough line" in seat-sharing talks, which are already underway, sources said.