BJP to fight on 25 LS seats, Sena on 23; in Assembly election 50:50

After months of posturing and covert hard bargaining, the ruling BJP and the Shiv Sena on Monday night came to a formal undertaking between them on forging an alliance to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha and the State Assembly polls in Maharashtra, after taking into account their “common ideology” and “nationalistic outlook”.

A little over a year after it had announced that it would contest both the Lok Sabha and Assembly on its own strength, the Shiv Sena came around to strike a seat-sharing deal with the BJP for both the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly polls, in line with its insistence that the seat-sharing for both the polls be linked so that there is no misunderstanding between them in the run-up to the Assembly polls and that the issues raised by it are addressed.

Under the seat-sharing formula arrived at between the two saffron partners, the BJP will contest 25 Lok Sabha seats, while the Shiv Sena will field candidates for the remaining 23 LS seats in Maharashtra. In the State Assembly polls, the two parties will —  after sparing some seats to other alliance constituents — contest equal number of seats.

At a joint news conference addressed by the leaders of both the parties, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made a formal announcement about the BJP-Sena seat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabha and the Assembly polls, in the presence of BJP’s national president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray.

“We have been together for over 25 years because of our shared ideologies and spirit of nationalism… In 2014 Assembly polls, owing to certain reasons we had split, but later since the past nearly five years we have been in the ruling alliance in Maharashtra and at the Centre,” Fadnavis said, expressing his happiness over the renewed alliance between the BJP and the Sena.

Expressing his happiness over the renewed alliance between the BJP and Sena, Shah said: “With our forming an alliance to contest the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls together, the wishes of crores of workers of both the parties have been fulfilled. After detailed discussions with Uddhavji, we have formalised the alliance. the Shiv Sena and Akali Dal are the oldest allies of the BJP. They have been with us through ups and downs. We have resolved whatever differences that arose in the recent years and we will fight the elections with renewed spirit to ensure the return of Modi Government at the Centre and saffron alliance government in the state”.

Uddhav said that both the Sena and BJP, which had been together for the past 30 years, would be making a “new beginning” and hoped that the “bitter experiences” of the past five years would not be repeated in future, and that both parties would work “shoulder-to-shoulder” in the forthcoming polls.

Earlier in the evening, Shah had driven down to Thackerays’ Bandra residence “Matoshri” along with state BJP leaders, held final round of talks with Uddhav and formalised the seat-sharing deal for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.                     

In the 25:23 LS and 50:50 Assembly poll seat-sharing deal struck between BJP’s national president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena --- after having been an vociferous critic of its saffron alliance partner and Prime Minister Narendra Modi –-- not only managed to get some face saver to get back to the saffron alliance, but it also gained in terms of seat-sharing deal in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

As against the 22 seats it had contested in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls which it had contested in alliance with the BJP, the Shiv Sena will contest 23 seats. In essence, the BJP has given up one seat, by agreeing to contest 25 seats instead of 26 seats it had fought in the previous polls.

The Shiv Sena --- which was playing hardball with the BJP by invoking the 1995 Assembly seat-sharing formula under which it had contested 169 seats leaving the remaining 116 seats to its saffron alliance partner and got the chief minister’s post after coming to power in that elections --settled down for a 50:50 seat-sharing deal with the BJP for the 2019 State Assembly polls.

However, both the parties have chosen to keep the issue of chief minister’s post open. Dwelling upon the sharing of positions in the event of the saffron alliance government returning to power, Fadnavis said: “We are confident of returning to power both at the Centre and in the state. If we take charge of the office once again in Maharashtra, we will share power and positions equitably”. However,  he chose not to say anything on the contentious issue of chief minister’s post.

On its part, the ruling BJP went out of the way to both good humour and give a face-saver to Shiv Sena, by agreeing to the Sena’s demand for early construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodya and assuring its partner that it would look into complaints of farmers who have not so far benefitted from the state government’s loan waiver scheme and the Centre’s crop insurance scheme, it would shift the Nanar oil refinery and petroleum products complex from coastal Ratnagiri district in view of the opposition from the local people and waive property tax of people living in flats less than 500 sq area each.

Uddhav said that the Sena was satisfied with the assurances given by the chief minister on its various demands.  “Since the chief minister has spoken in detail about the issues that we had raised during the course of our talks and the assurances given by the state government, I need not have to talk much about it. I am satisfied with the assurances given by him ( the chief minister)”.

It was a big day for Shah as he managed to bring back the Shiv Sena, which had contested the 2014 Assembly polls independently, into the saffron alliance. However, the BJP has paid considerable cost for restoring the alliance especially in terms of the seat-sharing arrangement it has arrived at for the State Assembly polls.  

The BJP, which will be contesting anywhere from 135 to 140 seats in the 2019 Assembly polls, had won as many as 122 seats on its own strength in the 2014 polls and doubled the percentage of votes (from 14.02 per cent in 2009 to 27.8 per cent in 2014). In fact, it had increased its winning tally by more than two and a half times from 46 seats in the 2009 polls to 122 seats in the 2014 polls.

As against the performance put up by the BJP, the Shiv Sena had emerged second in the 2014  Assembly polls by winning as many as 63 seats (out of 282 seats it had contested). The Sena had also increased  its polling percentage from 16.26 in the previous polls to 19.4 now and scale up its seat tally from 44 in 2009 to 63 seats in 2014.