The BJP and Shiv Sena may finalise their seat sharing arrangement for Maharashtra assembly poll in the next two-days.
“The alliance would work out seat sharing by next 48 hours..”, said a senior central BJP leader overseeing the poll preparations.The BJP has been bargaining for 144 seats in the Maharasthra assembly, more than 119 seats which it contested in 2009 elections.The command performance in the lok Sabha poll under Narendra Modi has led BJP to demand lion’s share in the Assembly poll in Maharashtra. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance backed 41 seats ( of total 48 seats) in Maharashtra in 2014 lok Sabha poll, while the NCP-Congress got only 6 seats.
BJP won 23 lok Sabha seats while Shiv Sena collected 18 seats in 2014 lok Sabha poll with Modi leading from the front. The BJP-shiv Sena alliance had won 19 seats in the 2009 elections. While BJP won 9 seats in the 2009 elections, Shiv Sena sent 11 MPs to the lok Sabha in 2009.
After the visit of BJP president Amit Shah to Maharashtra last week, the Shiv Sena seem to have yielded to the BJP’s argument that in the backdrop of its higher conversion of lok Sabha seats and higher vote per centage it should be contesting more seats in Assembly polls too.
The day after Shah met Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, Sena maintained that Uddhav was not in the CM race. BJP has impressed that CM’s post will go to the party winning larger number of seats in the assembly polls.Detailing the results of the past assembly polls, the BJP think tank has pointed out that the Party’s strike rate in the state elections has also been successively better than its ally and therefore it qualifies for contesting more number of seats.
The BJP and Sena are to have joint poll campaign after the conclusion of seat sharing talks.