Amit Shah to visit Maharashtra for finalising MahaYuti's seat sharing deal

Mumbai, Sep 20 (IANS) Amid seat-sharing talks gathering momentum among the MahaYuti partners, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a two-day visit to Maharashtra, beginning September 24, to finalise seats for BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections.

During the visit, the Union Home Minister will hold a review with the BJP leaders, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar.

He will visit Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nashik and Kolhapur to take stock of the seat-sharing negotiations and push for an early settlement as BJP is quite keen to announce its first list of around 60 to 70 candidates around the Dussehra (October 12).

Even Shiv Sena and NCP are also keen to announce the list of their respective candidates during that time.

The Union Home Minister's visit is crucial as CM Shinde recently said that the Assembly election is expected to take place in the second week of November and the Election Commission of India is likely to announce the poll schedule around October 10.

Before Union Minister Shah's visit, the state BJP core committee will meet on September 23 in Mumbai and discuss the seats it is keen to get and also review the poll preparations in over 99,000 booths.

The core committee will also review the party's coordination with the RSS and its affiliated organisations at booths, mandals, tehsils, districts and across the state.

State BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule has recently said there has been an agreement among BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP over 70 per cent of seats.

The Union Minister will also discuss with CM Shinde, Deputy CMs Fadnavis and Pawar the impact of ongoing protests over Maratha, OBC and Dhangar reservations in the state and MahaYuti's plan B to contain the damage.

On September 8, the Union Home Minister held a marathon meeting with top BJP leaders during which the state leaders made a strong case for the party contesting 160 seats of the total 288 seats, playing a big brother's role. The state leaders also suggested to him that the allocation of seats to Shiv Sena and NCP should be based on their winnability and respective strengths.

On its part, Shiv Sena, which had won seven out of 16 seats it contested in the Lok Sabha elections, is aggressively pushing for 125 seats considering its reach. On the other hand, NCP is expected to settle at 60 seats against its original demand of 80 to 90 seats.

As the chorus for 160 seats grows in BJP, both Shiv Sena and NCP have expressed their reservations about distributing the remaining 128 seats among themselves.

A senior BJP functionary, who is privy to the party's poll preparations and seat-sharing arrangement, said "Shah during his meeting with state leaders on September 8 had told them to resolve the seat-sharing arrangement with Shiv Sena and NCP. In the case of disagreement over a few seats, the Union Minister had shown his readiness to intervene to find a solution acceptable to the three MahaYuti partners."

He further added that the RSS' role is quite crucial as its functionaries across the state have swung into action for the victory of MahaYuti.

Another BJP functionary said that at present MahaYuti has a strength of 186 legislators and there could be a problem over six to seven seats where three parties have staked claims.

In addition, there are another 14 to 15 seats where a political party other than BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP was defeated in the 2019 Assembly elections with fewer votes. Last week, CM Shinde held a meeting with the party's office bearers and asked them to step up outreach with voters.

NCP national president and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar met the party legislators on Wednesday and clarified that the party would contest the Assembly poll in MahaYuti and 54 seats the NCP (united) had won in the 2019 Assembly elections were non-negotiable.

(Sanjay Jog can be reached at sanjay.j@ians.in)

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