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Maharashtra elections: Shah meets Mahayuti leaders amid impasse
According to people aware of the details, the alliance partners have reached an agreement on at least 270 seats but continue to remain at loggerheads on more than 15 constituencies.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday met Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and his two deputies, Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, to iron out issues related to the seat-sharing arrangement in the ruling Mahayuti coalition for the November 20 assembly elections.
There are 288 seats in the Maharashtra assembly. The Mahayuti alliance is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and consists of the Shiv Sena and the National Congress Party (NCP) as its key constituents.
According to people aware of the details, the alliance partners have reached an agreement on at least 270 seats but continue to remain at loggerheads on more than 15 constituencies.
“The three leaders (Shinde, Fadnavis and Pawar) held a meeting with Shah in Delhi on Thursday. During the meeting that lasted for over four hours, Shah directed the leaders to take into consideration merit rather than seeking to retain their present seats while chalking out the deal,” one of the persons cited above said, seeking anonymity.
“Shah also asked the alliance partners to work unitedly and strengthen the coalition to take on the rival Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandara Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT). More rounds of discussions are expected to be held in Mumbai for a resolution on the disputed seats. The three parties, which have already released their first list of candidates (prior to the formal announcement), have decided not to release their second lists in a hurry to avoid rebellion,” the person added.
The three leaders rushed to Delhi for the second time within a week for consultations about seat sharing that were stalled due to differences over certain segments in Mumbai and Vidarbha claimed by both the Shiv Sena and the BJP.
A second person said that the Sena seeks to contest on 90 seats but the BJP is keen on giving it only 73 seats. “The BJP wants a few seats to be conceded to Ramdas Athawale-led RPI from their and the Sena’s quota,” the second person said.
The second person provided instances where all the three partners are struggling to arrive at a consensus.
“The BJP and NCP have staked claims on Ashti, where the latter’s Balasaheb Ajabe is a sitting MLA. In Tasgaon in Sangli, Pawar wants to field his candidate, while the BJP wants to field former MP Sajay Patil’s son,” the second person said.
“The Sena and BJP are at loggerheads over the MMR seats, including Kalyan East and Airoli, from where the BJP has already fielded Sulbha Gaikwad and Ganesh Naik, respectively. A similar clash exists over a few Mumbai seats, including Andheri East, Kalina, Versova, where both the parties have multiple candidates,” the person added.
A third person said that the BJP’s objection to the NCP’s possible decision to field former minister Nawab Malik from Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar and Sena’s decision to field Swikriti Pradeep Sharma from Andheri East have caused friction among the partners.
Malik, who was jailed in a money laundering case, has been accused of having links to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim by the BJP.
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday, state BJP chief Ashish Shelar said: “We will not accept giving a ticket to someone linked to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. We won’t support Malik and will have a different stand.”
“At the meeting, Shah pointed out that since the three parties were going to fight the elections together for the first time, there will be clashes but the rebellion needs to be kept under check. The alliance had to face losses during the Lok Sabha elections and all parties must keep their rebellion under check,” a fourth person said.
In the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, the BJP suffered a severe drubbing in Maharashtra, where its tally tumbled to nine from 23 seats in 2019. The Shiv Sena secured seven and the NCP managed to bag just one seat. The MVA bagged 30 seats.
In the 2019 assembly polls, the BJP fought 164 seats and won 105. At the time, it was in alliance with the undivided Sena.
