Mumbai: The Shiv Sena’s row with long-time ally BJP, over seat-sharing for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections, was “unfortunate”, party chief Uddhav Thackeray admitted today while addressing the party’s National Executive meet.
“There is a tug of war in the alliance. What is happening right before elections is unfortunate. Seat distribution is a complicated affair,” he told Sena workers, adding, “We want to win and we will win the elections”.
His comments come a day after the BJP rejected the Sena’s final offer on seat sharing, deepening the crisis facing the alliance.
“The big question is whether the alliance with the BJP will survive,” said Mr Thackeray, adding that he will be “unhappy” if the decades-old partnership came to an end.
Sources had said that Sena wants to contest 155 of the 288 seats in the assembly and suggested that the BJP contest 125, ten less than it has reportedly demanded.
Such a formula would have left only eight seats for their smaller partners in what is called the “Mahayuti” alliance and not the 16 to 18 that was originally planned.
“I met Uddhav Thackeray and told him that we have received the proposal. I informed that we cannot accept the proposal as after discussing it, we have informed Shiv Sena that if we accept it we would be contesting lesser seats than the last election,” Maharashtra BJP president Devendra Fadnavis has said.
A delegation of BJP leaders are meeting the party’s top leadership in Delhi to find a way out of this stalemate.
Meanwhile, the party seemed to be making a point to its estranged ally today, with party vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe tweeting, “BJP never indulged in insulting allies through controlled news papers. We have always valued political allies”.
