Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have been working behind the scenes to sort out the tussle over the seat-sharing formula for the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra on October 21.
Leaders from both the parties, including chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil and senior Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai, held a round of negotiations this week.
Here are five things to know about what’s keeping them from announcing the pact:
1. All eyes are on whether the alliance between the BJP and Shiv Sena will be formalised this week.
2. Both parties, which have been allies for long, insist that the bottlenecks will be removed soon. But there is no confirmation yet on whether the BJP will agree to the Sena’s demands for more seats to contest in the 288 member assembly.
3. The Shiv Sena was represented by 63 members in the last assembly, while the BJP had 122 members. The Sena has been urging the BJP to follow a 50:50 seat-sharing formula. According to sources, the BJP wants to retain the existing seats, allocate 10 to its other ally the Republican Party of India and share the remaining seats equally with the Sena.
{{/usCountry}}3. The Shiv Sena was represented by 63 members in the last assembly, while the BJP had 122 members. The Sena has been urging the BJP to follow a 50:50 seat-sharing formula. According to sources, the BJP wants to retain the existing seats, allocate 10 to its other ally the Republican Party of India and share the remaining seats equally with the Sena.
{{/usCountry}}4. There are also reports suggesting that the final agreement will also be taken once both parties take a call on whether Sena scion Aditya Thackeray will be considered for the deputy chief minister’s post.
5. This is not the first time that the two allies have sparred over sharing seats. Disagreements had come to fore before the Lok Sabha elections this year as well. Ahead of the assembly polls in 2014, both sides had called off their alliance and contested separately.