BJP, SENA ANNOUNCE FINAL SEAT SHARING FOR MAHA

Uddhav Thackeray led Sena will contest from 124 of 288 seats, rest for BJP and allies

MUMBAI: The BJP has walked away with the lion's share of the seats in seat-sharing negotiations with the Shiv Sena for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

While the party will field candidates from 164 seats along with smaller allies, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been granted 124.

The final seat-sharing agreement between the two allies was finalised with the release of the BJP'S fourth list of candidates on Friday.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had flown to Mumbai for the event after holding a massive roadshow in Nagpur Southwest, from where he has filed his nomination.

Maharashtra will go to the polls on October 21, and the votes will be counted three days later. As many as 288 seats are up for grabs in the electoral contest, which will also have the Congress-ncp combine competing for power.

Addressing a press conference after the announcement of the fourth list, Devendra Fadnavis said that while his party may have differences with the Shiv Sena on certain issues, they are bound by the "common thread" of Hindutva. He also predicted that their alliance would notch an unprecedented victory in the upcoming elections.

The Shiv Sena chief also downplayed the hectic - sometimes bitter - seat-sharing negotiations taken up with the BJP in the days past. "It doesn't matter who is the younger or older brother. What matters is the relationship between brothers," he said, metaphorically speaking.

Talks between the two parties over the last few months hadn't exactly been smooth. The Shiv Sena was hoping for a 50:50 seat-sharing formula similar to the one implemented for the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, and a section of its

leaders were in favour of ending the alliance if its demands were not fulfilled. However, Devendra Fadnavis insisted on continuing with the negotiations.

In 2014, the Sena and the BJP had ended their alliance ahead of the state elections, only to get back together after the electorate delivered a split verdict.

In another development, the BJP dropped its one of the senior most leader Eknath Khadse and cabinet minister Vinod Tawde from the list of candidates.

It fielded Eknath Khadse's daughter Rohini from his Muktainagar constituency in north Maharashtra. The decision to field Rohini Khadse indicates the BJP succeeded in placating her father, who had been representing Muktainagar since 1991.

Power Minister Chandrashekar Bawankule, senior

leaders Prakash Mehta and Raj Purohit also don't figure in the

list.