Amid MahaYuti seat sharing talks, Amit Shah to visit Mumbai on October 1 for review meetings

BJP sources said the MahaYuti’s seat sharing was on track and consensus on almost 80% seats was reached. All three parties will fight together and campaign for all the three symbols.

Amid rounds of seat sharing talks among the MahaYuti allies, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in Mumbai on October 1 for review meetings of Mumbai and Konkan regions.

“The Mumbai review meeting will take place at Dadar while the Konkan region meeting is likely to be held at Thane,” Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar said.

Top sources in the party said seat sharing talks were on track and consensus was reached on almost 80% seats. “We are discussing constituency-wise. We are looking at the winnability factor in each seat. Once that is decided, the constituency is kept aside. That way, we are through with many seats,” said a source familiar with the developments.

State BJP sources indicated that the party would like to fight on 150 to 160 seats. Of the 288 seats, the remaining can be distributed among the two allies. But the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) said it was confident of getting a “respectable” share. MahaYuti sources said NCP leader Ajit Pawar will continue to be a part of the alliance.

“We are sure that each party will get a respectable number of seats. Seat sharing talks are on track and everything will be decided in the next few days,” a senior leader from NCP said.

The differences among the allies are likely to emerge on the number of seats each party will get to fight. While the NCP has regional aspirations though it did not participate strongly in the Lok Sabha elections, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) also looks to get a sizeable number of seats. It is unlikely that their aspirations will be contained by 130 seats together. The other challenge for each party is to accommodate the aspirations of all leaders.

“That will not be a problem. We are having a conversation with all of them. We will take care of them,” a top BJP leader said.

When asked about the leading face for the election campaign, he said, “There is a consensus among all the three parties that we will go to the voters together. We will fight together. No political party will go to the voters with only their symbol. We will not go to the voters asking for votes for lotus. We will take the clock as well as the bow and arrow with us. And there is a consensus on this.”

In a massive outreach programme, the BJP said it has reached out to several communities in the State, met their leaders and had discussions with them. “We have been holding meetings with different communities. We identified and tapped on various communities dominant in different parts of Maharashtra. From the biggest communities to the smallest communities, we have got all of them onboard. There seems to be a positive sentiment among them for the BJP,” a senior BJP leader said.

Published - September 27, 2024 09:22 pm IST