Union Home Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah met the core committee members including Devendra Fadnavis, Pankaja Munde and Girish Mahajan, in Maharashtra, ahead of the state polls. In the meeting that lasted nine-hours, the members discussed a seat-sharing formula that enabled the party to make a decision and settle down on contesting lesser seats than it originally planned to. 

BJP to give up Deputy CM's post

According to BJP leaders, Shiv Sena, which is all set to come together with the BJP for the state polls, will get 126 seats while the BJP will contest close to 144-150 seats. The rest are expected to go to the allies. Another decision taken by the party members during the meeting was to give up the post of the Deputy Chief Minister’s post.

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However, how the party allocates seats on the basis of quota is yet to be seen. It was also mentioned that the meeting lasted long because of the clashes on decisions regarding a sizeable section of the party not being keen on giving so many seats to the Sena, especially after the 2014 Maharashtra polls where the Sena won 63 seats in comparison to the BJP winning 122 seats. Fadnavis, who is the current chief minister of the state, has strongly been advocating the alliance between the two parties on the pretext that Sena will strengthen the possibilities of BJP winning in the state and will help in curbing the risks related to the polls. He also feels that BJP fighting alone could act as an undue advantage for Congress and NCP. The final decision, after both parties meet and talk, is expected to come in by Sunday.

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Shah is confident of the win

On a related note, recently, Shah, while addressing a public gathering in Maharashtra has said that he is confident that the Maharashtra public will vote for the party and will choose Fadnavis as the Chief Minister again. He had said, “For the last two-three days, the Congress and NCP people are saying if this/that doesn’t happen they will win…I want tell you that no matter what happens the NDA government in Maharashtra will return with three-fourth seats.”

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