As the ruling saffron alliance partners have not arrived yet at any agreement over the seat-sharing for the Maharashtra Assembly polls, Union Home Minister and BJP’s national president Amit Shah may intervene and talk to Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray during the weekend to sort out issues impeding the formalisation of the electoral tie-up.
Informed sources in the BJP said that Shah, who is expected to visit Mumbai on Sunday, would hold talks with Uddhav and formalise the seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties for the State Assembly polls. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is expected to participate in the talks.
Though both the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena have been claiming that it is only a matter of time before they inked the seat-sharing deal them, not much is happening on the ground during the recent weeks.
Insiders in both the parties say that since the earlier seat-sharing understanding between them of sharing 135 seats each after leaving the remaining 18 seats to allies had come cropper, the saffron alliance partners are struggling to arrive at a new formula to share the seats.
Candidly enough, Maharashtra’s BJP president Chandrakant Patil said on Friday that the two saffron alliance partners had not so far finalised any formula for sharing the seats for the Assembly polls. Talking to media persons after an election committee meeting of the BJP, Patil said: “No formula has been finalised yet. But, there will definitely an electoral alliance between the BJP and Shiv Sena for the Assembly polls. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will seat across and decide”.
On his part, Uddhav struck a different note when he said that the BJP and Sena had already decided on the seat-sharing formula for the Assembly during the tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a news conference at the party’s headquarters “Sena Bhavan”, Uddhav said: “ We ( Sena and BJP) had decided on the seat-sharing formula for the Assembly polls when we formalised the tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls. There is no problem within the alliance. We will formalise the seat-sharing for the Assembly polls in two-three days”. It may be recalled that The BJP and Shiv Sena had agreed to share seats equally for the Assembly polls, at a joint meeting that BJP president Amit shah and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had with Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on February 18 this year when the two parties formalised the seat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabha polls.
Later on June 2, senior BJP leader and now State party president Chandrakant Patil had confirmed that the BJP and Shiv Sena would contest 135 seats each in the State Assembly polls, setting aside the remaining 18 seats for their allies.
However, the BJP is no mood to allocate 135 seats to the Shiv Sena on the ground that since it had won 122 seats as against 63 seats won by the Sena in the 2014 polls, it deserved more number of seats than the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
Informed sources in the BJP said that the principal ruling party might offer anywhere from 110 to 120 seats to the Shiv Sena. The Sena, meanwhile, is understood to have pushed a new formula — under which it would get 126 seat, while the BJP would keep 162 seats. From its quota of 162 seats, the BJP would allocate seats to various allies in the BJP-Sena combine-led “Maha Yuti” (grand alliance).
The BJP has reservations in accepting the 126 (Sena):162 (BJP+allies) formula. So much so that the BJP, which is confident of returning to power in the state, has hinted that it has Plan-B of contesting all the 288 seats in the state ready. However, the talk about the Plan-B is more of posturing on the part of the BJP to force the Shiv Sena to settle for lesser number of seats than it is demanding.