Mumbai: After days of hard bargaining, the MahaYuti partners, comprising the BJP, the Shiv Sena, and the NCP, have finally sealed the seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra.
As per the pact, coming after two rounds of Lok Sabha elections being already held, of the 48 seats, the BJP has got the lion’s share with 28 seats, the Shiv Sena 15, the NCP 4, and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha 1.
It took a longer time for the three MahaYuti partners to arrive at an understanding mainly due to the claims and counterclaims made over several seats by them.
The ruling alliance has set an ambitious target of winning 45 of the total 48 seats, riding on PM Narendra Modi’s guarantee and the work done by the state government in Maharashtra.
PM Modi has addressed about nine rallies in the state so far and is expected to address more during the next three phases of the elections.
The list of 28 seats being fought by BJP are Mumbai North, Mumbai North East, Mumbai North Central, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Akola, Amaravati, Wardha, Nanded, Latur, Solapur, Madha, Satara, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Raver, Jalna, Pune, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Beed, Dhule, Dindori, Palghar, and Bhiwandi.
The party said it will announce its candidate for Palghar on Thursday.
The Shiv Sena is contesting Mumbai South, Mumbai North West, Mumbai South Central, Thane, Nashik, Kalyan, Kolhapur, Hatkanangale, Hingoli, Yavatmal-Washim, Shirdi, Ramtek, Buldhana, Maval, and Aurangabad.
The NCP has bagged Baramati, Raigad, Dharashiv, and Shirur while it has left the Parbhani seat to Rashtriya Samaj Paksha.
The BJP has dropped sitting MPs Poonam Mahajan, Manoj Kotak, Gopal Shetty from Mumbai North Central, Mumbai North East and Mumbai North constituencies, respectively and also Sanjay Dhotre from Akola seat, Unmesh Patil from Jalgaon, Pritam Munde from Beed, and Jaisidheshvar Swami from Solapur.
The party has fielded Union Minister Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North, Mihir Kotecha from Mumbai North East, Ujjwal Nikam from Mumbai North Central, Anup Dhotre from Akola, Smita Wagh from Jalgaon, and Pankaja Munde from Beed. The party has also nominated the state minister Sudhir Mungantiwar from the Chandrapur seat which it had lost in the 2019 elections to the Congress.
In the case of Shiv Sena, the party has dropped sitting MPs from Hingoli, Ramtek, Yavatmal-Washim, and Mumbai North West.
The NCP, despite its earlier demand of 13 seats, had to settle for four seats in which the party President Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar has been nominated against her sister-in-law and NCP-SP nominee Supriya Sule from Baramati, Sunil Tatkare, who is sitting MP from Raigad, is contenting again, while the party had to import nominees in Shirur and Dharashiv from the Shiv Sena and the BJP, respectively.
The party has fielded former Shiv Sena leader and three-term MP Shivajirao Adhalrao from Shirur and BJP legislator Rana Jagjit Singh Patil’s wife Archana Patil from Dharashiv constituency. The Rashtriya Samaj Paksha founder and former minister Mahadev Jankar has been pitted against the Shiv Sena UBT’s sitting MP Sanjay Jadhav from the Parbhani seat.
During the 2019 elections, the BJP had won 23 seats out of 25 seats while its ally Shiv Sena (united) had bagged 18 out of 22 seats. Together, they had won 41 seats while four were won by the NCP (united), one each by Congress, the MIM, and an independent.
(IANS)
