BJP, Shiv Sena close to announcing a poll deal
Sources said that as per the agreement, the BJP would continue to be the ‘elder brother’ in Maharashtra.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena have almost reached an agreement on seat sharing for next month’s Assembly elections in Maharashtra and a formal announcement is likely to be announced on Sunday by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.
The elections are scheduled to be held on 21 October and results will be announced on 24 October.
Sources said, as per the agreement, the BJP would continue to be the “elder brother” in the state with the party contesting on more number of seats than the Shiv Sena. “The BJP may contest on 150-155 seats, while the Shiv Sena is likely to contest on 120-125 seats,” a BJP source said.
The core group of Maharashtra BJP, including Chief Minister Fadnavis and others, met BJP president Amit Shah at the party headquarters this week to sort out the seat-sharing deal and finalise candidates to be fielded. The central election committee of the BJP is also expected to meet on Sunday to announce the candidates for around 100 seats of the state.
Sources also pointed out that, as per the agreement, there would be a Deputy Chief Minister from the Shiv Sena, in case the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) returns to power in the state, while the BJP will keep the CM’S post. Sources said Fadnavis is likely to be retained as the incumbent CM in that situation.
There are a total of 288 seats in the state Assembly. The Shiv Sena had demanded that the Assembly seats be distributed in 50:50 ratio. It also wanted a rotation of the Chief Minister’s post. However, the BJP has declined to agree to this demand.
According to the source, the remaining 8-18 seats may be given to smaller alliance partners like Republican Party of India (RPI) of Ramdas Athawale and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha of Mahadev Jankar. “There are some other prospective allies too, but their candidates have been asked to contest on the BJP symbol,” he added.
It is to be noted that in the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP had snapped its ties with Shiv Sena which, till that time, was the “big brother” in the alliance in the state. The Shiv Sena had offered 119 seats to the BJP, keeping 151 for itself, which was not acceptable to the BJP. After several rounds of negotiations, the two parties did not reach a conclusion and the 25-year-old Shiv SENA-BJP alliance ended in September 2014, just a few weeks before the Assembly elections.
“However, the strategy of contesting separately paid. We contested 260 seats and won 122, while the Shiv Sena contested on 282 seats and won just 63. The vote percentage of BJP was 27.8%, while that of Shiv Sena was just 19.3%. So it became clear that we were being underestimated. This put us in a better bargaining power vis-àvis Shiv Sena, which finally decided to support us after the elections and finally, we could have our own Chief Minister (Devendra Fadnavis),” the BJP source added. At the launch of NE News, when asked if other Gennext leaders from the Congress such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot or Milind Deora would follow his cue and join the BJP, Himanta Biswa Sarma said he had been approached by many Congress leaders recently who admitted that they misunderstood him when he left the party and now realised that it was a good move. But Sarma added, “When I joined BJP there was a vaccuum in BJP in the Northeast. But in the North and West there is no vacuum for these Congress leaders.” He added that the ecosystem within the Congress was such that the leadership slot would always be a game of musical chairs within the family—if not Sonia, then Rahul or Priyanka’s son.