Mumbai: After days of meetings and talks over seat sharing in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the grand old Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena alliance, the Mahayuti, now seems to be on the brink. Sources say that a final decision is likely by Thursday evening.
These developments come after BJP President Amit Shah cancelled his Mumbai visit yet again on Thursday even as a late night meeting between the BJP and Shiv Sena failed to reach any solution. Sources say that a new proposal was discussed in which the Sena will contest 148 seats, and three seats will be contested by the alliance partners on Sena symbol while the BJP will contest 127 seats and 13 will be given to the smaller parties.
Sources say that the BJP had accepted this proposal, but is now demanding exchange of seats. Sources say teh BJP has demanded seats in areas like Panvel where the party has little presence.
The Sena leaders, however, say that it would be difficult to exchange seats at the last moment. According to sources, they also say that the BJP never raised this issue in the earlier meetings but only on Thursday night.
The smaller parties in the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance had issued an ultimatum of Thursday, 11 am to resolve the seat sharing issue. They were unhappy with the proposal of giving only seven seats to the smaller parties.
The Republican Party of India, the Rashtriya Samaj Party and Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghathana have rejected the Sena's offer of seven seats to them and threatened to release their list of candidates. They are demanding 18 seats.
Earlier, the Sena had proposed 151 seats for itself and 130 for the BJP.
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