Maha Assembly polls: BJP, Shiv Sena hold seat-sharing talks

Np News 24 Mumbai: The Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a meeting to decide on seat sharing in the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls on Thursday.  There has been indication of hard bargaining by both the parties over seat sharing.

According to sources, State BJP President Chandrakant Patil and leader Girish Mahajan met Shiv Sena leader Subhash Dedai and others to arrive on a deal over the 288 Assembly seats in the State.

The pre-poll pact talks between both the parties has been going on from last few days.  Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has apparently conveyed that both parties should retain seats which they won in 2014 after allocating few seats to other allies.

Sena sources have said that the party will stick to the 144 seats formula worked out between Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and CM Fadnavis and BJP National President Amit Shah earlier.

In 2014, both parties had contested polls separately.  BJP won 122 and Sena won 63 seats.

The Assembly polls are due next month in the State.