Mumbai: After prolonged negotiations with the BJP, the Shiv Sena announced its candidates from the Thane, Kalyan and Nashik Lok Sabha seats. Shiv Sena sitting MP Hemant Godse will be contesting from Nashik, while Naresh Mhaske, a close aide of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, will be contesting from the Thane seat. The Sena also officially announced Dr Shrikant Shinde’s candidature from the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat.
The BJP is expected to announce its candidate from the Palghar seat.
Thus, the NDA’s final seat sharing formula in Maharashtra is likely to be 28 seats for BJP, 14 seats for Shiv Sena, five seats for NCP and a seat for Mahadev Jankar-led RSP.
The Shiv Sena announced its remaining candidates for Thane, Kalyan and Nashik seats on Wednesday. Initially, BJP was not ready to concede the South Mumbai, Thane, Mumbai North West, and Nashik seats to CM Ekanth Shinde-led Shiv Sena. However, it conceded all these seats.
A report said the BJP had planned to offer only 12 seats to Shiv Sena, but its survey on these seats made it realize that all these were tough ones to win against Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).
“The BJP decided that rather than contesting the ‘losing seats’, it should to offer them to Shiv Sena,” said a party source. This deal will help the BJP in apportioning blame on Shinde if his faction fails to win the promised number of seats, said a party leader.
A Shiv Sena leader claimed that in negotiations with the BJP, CM Shinde showed his political shrewdness and brought the 14 Lok Sabha seats for his faction. “On the other hand, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, a partner of Mahayuti, also has an equal number of MLAs in this government, but he got only five seats. Therefore, Shiv Sena is in a better position today in Mahayuti,” said the Sena leader.
In 2019, the BJP contested 25 seats. This election, it is contesting 28. “The party feels that by contesting as many seats, it can at least repeat the previous winning number, 22 seats. This is a very close contest, therefore, BJP is putting its all efforts into the polls,” said an observer.
The Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde on Wednesday named ex-mayor Naresh Mhaske and MP Hemant Godse for Thane and Nashik LS seats. The party also declared the candidature of CM Shinde’s son and MP Shrikant Shinde from Kalyan seat.
