The leaders from Mahayuti - the ruling coalition in Maharashtra - met Union Home Minister Amit Shah last night to discuss the seat-sharing plan ahead of the state Assembly elections scheduled next month.
The late-night meeting between Mr Shah and the Mahayuti leaders came at a time when the talks were at a crucial juncture. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde from the Shiv Sena and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from the BJP met Mr Shah in Delhi.
The Home Minister also had a one-on-one conversation with Mr Shinde on the sidelines of the NDA Chief Ministers' meeting - chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi - in Chandigarh.
Sources told NDTV that BJP, which is the single-largest party in the Maharashtra Assembly with 105 seats, is expected to be the "big brother" in the seat-sharing plan, contesting on at least 155 seats of the total 288 seats and the remaining will be shared between Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The Big Challenge
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are seeking to retain power in the November 20 state Assembly polls.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Mahayuti won just 17 of the state's 48 constituencies while the Maha Vikas Aghadi's tally was 30. The Assembly elections were, thus, seen as an uphill battle for the Mahayuti but appear to have been made easier by the results of the polls in Haryana, where the BJP formed a government - delivering its best-ever performance in the state - despite battling anti-incumbency after two straight terms in power.
The last election in 2019 was a fairly straightforward battle between the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena coalition on the one hand and the Congress-NCP alliance on the other. Several political developments have taken place since the last election.
In 2022, Eknath Shinde led a rebellion and split the Shiv Sena into two, with a majority of MLAs supporting his leadership over Uddhav Thackeray's. He formed a government with the BJP and took oath as the Chief Minister. He is backed by 40 MLAs.
A year later, a similar political crisis took place in the state when Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar led a rebellion along with other leaders and broke away from NCP led by his uncle. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP allied with the ruling coalition, forming the Mahyuti.
What About MVA
Meanwhile, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) - the Opposition alliance in Maharashtra - has firmed up seat sharing on 263 of the state's 288 Assembly constituencies, sources have told NDTV on Thursday.
A meeting of alliance partners Congress, the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP and the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena was held on Thursday and good progress was made in seat-sharing discussions, the sources said. The meeting was attended by Congress Maharashtra President Nana Patole, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Sanjay Raut and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leaders Jitendra Awhad, Jayant Patil and Anil Deshmukh, among others.
The remaining 25 seats which remain disputed include five of the 36 Assembly constituencies in Mumbai, including Kurla, Dharavi, Versova and Byculla. The sources said the list of finalised and disputed segments will be sent to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and the heads of the other two coalition partners, Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, who will take a final decision in "two to three days".
Elections in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20 and votes will be counted three days later on November 23.
