Consensus on seat sharing in Maharashtra elections; BJP gets 144, Sena 126: Report

Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena will contest the upcoming Maharashtra state elections together and have built a consensus on seat share with majority of seats in the BJP’s kitty, NDTV has reported.

The state is represented by 288 assembly seats out of which the BJP will contest 144 seats and the Sena will contest 126 seats and 18 seats have been allotted to the smaller allies. It is also learnt that the Sena will get the post of the Deputy Chief Minister, NDTV quoted its political sources.

Elections will be held in Maharashtra on October 21 and the results will be declared on October 24.

With less than a month to go for the polls, the ruling alliance came to an understanding after an internal meeting of the BJP earlier today, where party chief Amit Shah and Working President JP Nadda took a call on the issue.

The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the party's core committee for the state -- including Pankaja Munde, Sudhir Munghantiwar and state leaders like Girish Mahajan.

While the Sena aimed for a 50:50 divide, a section of state leaders were in favour of ending the alliance and having the BJP go on its own.

Given the party's showing in the state in the Lok Sabha election, there were expectations that unlike the 2014 state elections, the party will achieve majority on its own.

Chief Minister Fadnavis, however, was in favour of the continuing the alliance and earlier told the media that the negotiations were underway.