Pune: Seat-Sharing Dispute Deepens Rift in Mahayuti Ahead of Assembly Elections: BJP-NCP Disagree on 21 Seats
Pune: As the elections for the state assembly in Maharashtra are approaching, almost every major party in the state has started their preparations. However, due to the large number of political parties in this year’s assembly election, both the Mahayuti and Mahavikas Aghadi alliances are facing difficulty at the time of seat-sharing allocation.
Meanwhile, sources have informed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has expressed its displeasure over the BJP for including the Ajit Pawar-led NCP party in the Mahayuti coalition. Whereas, on the other hand, various leaders of the BJP and Shiv Sena Shinde faction are now targeting the NCP-Ajit Pawar party. Therefore, there seems rift within the Mahayuti alliance ahead of assembly elections.
One immediate major hurdle before the Mahayuti alliance is seat-sharing. As per the information from sources of 288 seats in Maharashtra for the assembly election, the BJP and the NCP lock their horns over 21 seats. These are those 21 seats where both parties had strong performances in the 2019 elections. Out of these 21 seats, most belong to the western Maharashtra region, and currently both parties are asserting their influence on those seats.
Therefore, it seems that there is a conflict between the BJP and NCP over these seats. Similarly, it has also been noticed that the leaders of both parties are having trouble adjusting to each other’s ideologies.
On the other hand, there are discussions that many important leaders who were earlier considered closer to Devendra Fadnavis, such as Samarjitsingh Ghatge and Harshavardhan Patil, are now shifting their allegiance to the NCP (SP) party. Similarly, the senior leader of the NCP party, Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, has also given a direct ultimatum to the BJP and his party officials to take action against Ranjitsingh Naik Nimbalkar; otherwise, he would switch to the NCP (SP) party.
According to sources, other leaders such as Uttamrao Jankar and Prashant Paricharak are also on the path of the NCP (SP) party.
