In Maharashtra, an important meeting of Mahayuti regarding Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was held in Mumbai on Thursday. During this, there was a detailed discussion between senior leaders of BJP and Shiv Sena Shinde faction regarding seat sharing and joint election campaign. The special thing is that leaders of BJP, Shinde and RPI were present in this meeting, but no leader of NCP Ajit Pawar faction was present.
Bharatiya Janata Party Mumbai President Amit Satam said that out of the total 227 BMC seats, an agreement has been reached between the two parties on the distribution of 150 seats. The final decision on the remaining 77 seats will be discussed in the next two-three days. It is believed that the screw is stuck on these seats. Now the final announcement on these seats will be made jointly by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. He said that in Thursday’s meeting, agreement was also reached on election preparation, campaign strategy, management, major issues and organizing joint public meetings of Fadnavis-Shinde. During this period he has claimed to win 170+ seats.
Clear stance regarding NCP
Maharashtra government minister Ashish Shelar said that the parties involved in the alliance have made it clear that if NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) contests elections in Mumbai under the leadership of Nawab Malik, then BJP will not form an alliance with it. Currently, coordination talks are going on in the grand alliance between BJP, Shinde faction Shiv Sena and others, while NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) has been kept aside. On the other hand, SP and MIM have indicated that they will contest the elections alone and their eyes are on the Muslim vote bank.
BJP-Shiv Sena’s claims and differences
According to sources, Shinde faction has demanded 100+ seats out of 227. At the same time, BJP has maintained its claim on 82 divisions won in 2017 and is also claiming those divisions where the party lost due to differences, but the total vote percentage was higher. Shiv Sena says that seat distribution on the basis of 2014 is not appropriate in the current circumstances. At present, leaders of both the parties are trying to reduce the ongoing tussle over seats. In which consensus has been reached on 150 seats. Talks are also going on on the remaining 77 seats.
Stirring in the opposition camp too
There is no clarity even in the opposition camp in the BMC elections. There are talks of meeting between Congress and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi. There are indications of efforts to include Sharad Pawar in the possible alliance of Raj-Uddhav Thackeray. However, Congress is not in favor of taking Raj Thackeray along. Maharashtra Congress President Harshvardhan Sapkal said that it is considering the possibility of contesting elections with Sharad Pawar and Prakash Ambedkar. Meanwhile, AIMIM leader Waris Pathan said that his party is also considering contesting the elections alone.
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