Devendra Fadnavis is meeting Home Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah in Delhi. (File)
A decision on continuing the alliance with Shiv Sena in the upcoming elections in Maharashtra and the number of seats the BJP is willing to offer the cantankerous ally in case of an affirmative, will be decided at a key meeting in Delhi today. Party chief Amit Shah and its working president JP Nadda will take a call on the matter after the meeting, which is being attended by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The leaders in the BJP's core committee for the state-including Pankaja Munde and Sudhir Munghantiwar and state leaders like Girish Mahajan are also attending the meet.
Sources have told NDTV that Mr Fadnavis is in favour of an alliance while state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil wants the party to go it alone. After the huge victory in the Lok Sabha elections, many leaders are confident that unlike the last state elections, the BJP can win majority on its own.
Mr Shah and Mr Nadda will take the final call after assessing the opinions of both camps.
The BJP does not want to give more than 110 of the state's 288 seats to the Shiv Sena, at most they can offer 120 seats. If the Sena insists on a 50:50 division -- which is its official position -- or even demands more than 120 seats, the BJP may decide to break off the alliance and go it alone.
Sources, however, indicated that the BJP would make an effort to convince the Sena to contest 120 and leave the rest for the BJP and its smaller partners.
On Wednesday, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Devendra Fadnavis shared stage at an event in Navi Mumbai. After the event, the Chief Minister confirmed to reporters that the alliance was on.
The Sena is not keen to break off the alliance, but is preparing for the possibility of going it alone. Earlier this week, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut described the tussle over seats as "as tedious" as the partition of India.
Maharashtra votes on October 21 and the counting of votes will take place on October 25.
The Opposition Congress and NCP are contesting as an alliance with 125 each for both the parties, leaving the rest for smaller like-minded parties.