Maharashtra elections: Shiv Sena to contest 124 of 288 seats, rest for BJP and allies

Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party has successfully taken up the majority of the seats in the Maharashtra state assembly polls. While the party will field candidates from 164 seats along with smaller allies, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been granted 124, reported NDTV.

The final seat-sharing agreement between the two allies was finalised with the release of the BJP's fourth list of candidates on Friday. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had flown to Mumbai for the event after holding a massive roadshow in Nagpur Southwest, from where he has filed his nomination.

Maharashtra is set to go for the polls on October 21, and the votes will be counted 3 days later. A total of 288 seats are up for grabs in the electoral contest, which will also have the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine competing for power.

Fadnavis addressed a press conference after the announcement of the fourth list and said while his party may have had differences with the Shiv Sena on certain issues, they are bound by the "common thread" of Hindutva. He also predicted that their alliance would notch an unprecedented victory in the upcoming elections.

The Shiv Sena chief downplayed the gruelling - sometimes bitter - seat-sharing negotiations taken up with the BJP in the days past. "It doesn't matter who is the younger or older brother. What matters is the relationship between brothers," Thackeray said, metaphorically speaking.

In 2014, the Sena and the BJP had ended their alliance ahead of the state elections, only to get back together after the electorate delivered a split verdict.