The 25-year-old alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena could be facing turbulent weather with the latter taking an adamant position on seat sharing equation. Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said that he had rejected BJP’s demand of contesting 135 seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra.
Thackeray said that his party continues to hold talks with its old ally but also hinted it could fight elections on its own, adding, “everything has an alternative”. Top leaders in BJP have been told that it would not be possible to spare more seats, he said at the launch of a fresh instalment of the party’s vision document for Maharashtra.
In 2009, Assembly elections, Shiv Sena had fought 169 seats and BJP in 119 seats. But, due to a drastic change in the country’s political scenario in the last five years, BJP has demanded more seats, which its ally is in mood to give.
A top BJP leader on the condition of anonymity said that after the thumping victory in Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena thinks that it can win the Assembly elections on its own. Unfortunately, some BJP leaders are also thinking on the same lines. “It is just a manifestation of inflamed and raging ambition,” the leader said.
BJP is also missing deceased leaders such as Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Mundhe, whose negotiation and team building skills were legendary, the leader said.
The Shiv Sena supremo added that the party is making all efforts to ensure that the alliance between the Sena and the BJP does not end. Excessive wrangling over seat sharing is not in the interest of both parties and the alliance should not miss the opportunity to remove the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government from Maharashtra.
BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy had on Sunday said that his party had proposed that both BJP and Shiv Sena could contest 135 seats each and the remaining seats should be shared between Republican Party of India (Athavale), Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana of Raju Shetty, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (‘National Social Party’) of Mahadev Jankar.