Mahayuti seat-sharing: Amit Shah acts firm with Shinde, Ajit Pawar; urges allies to ‘be reasonable’

Amit Shah meets with Maharashtra allies to resolve seat-sharing dispute ahead of Lok Sabha elections.

Amid the seat-sharing turmoil within the ruling Mahayuti alliance, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a series of election-related meetings with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s partners in Maharashtra - CM Eknath Shinde (Shiv Sena) and Ajit Pawar (NCP) through late Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

According to sources, Mr. Shah is said to have acted ‘firmly’ with the BJP’s coalition partners and the saffron party is expected to stake claim on the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats of the total 48 in the State.

While the division is yet to be announced, leaders within the BJP, requesting anonymity, said that their party could contest on as many as 32-34 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, leaving 10 for Mr. Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction and a mere four, or even less, for the Ajit Pawar’s NCP.  

During his two-day tour of the State, Mr. Shah presided over hectic late-night meetings with Mr. Shinde and both the Deputy Chief Ministers, Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis, to resolve the intense wrangling that has arisen between the three ruling allies.

Both Mr. Shinde and Mr. Pawar met Shah a second time on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Shah is reported to have told his allies to “be reasonable” and not demand more seats just for sake of it, said sources, who also claimed that a consensus had been reached on most of the seats and that the parleys were constructive.

NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) leader Chhagan Bhujbal, meanwhile said, that their party should be accorded the same number of seats as will be given to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction.