Maharashtra Assembly Election 2024: Despite more allies, BJP wants as many seats as 2019

The ruling alliance Mahayuti and Opposition front Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have sped up closed-door activities for the Assembly elections that are expected to be notified early next month. The NDA (Mahayuti) - still working on seat-sharing - is, like its rivals, not finding it easy to finalise a formula. A demanding BJP has set a target of winning 125 seats in 2024, and to achieve this, it wants to contest 155-160 seats and share the rest with NDA partners, of which an equally demanding Shinde Sena appears to be more aggressive in pushing for more seats in Mumbai and MMR, where the BJP has the most number of MLAs.

The priority for the Mahayuti and MVA alliances is to share the 288 seats in a competitive atmosphere without much friction that can offer their respective opponent an advantage. MVA leaders met on Wednesday at the insistence of Shiv Sena (UBT). Sources said it was a precursor to the final talks about Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. It was said that the MVA has an agreement on 125 seats where only one party has staked its claim. According to Sena leader Sanjay Raut, the talks were to be held over the next three days. A halfway mark of 145 of 288 seats is required to form a government. MVA leaders have been consistent in saying that they will overshoot the simple majority target.

MVA leaders met on Wednesday at Thackeray Sena's insistence. File Pic/Atul Kamble

In Congress stronghold Vidarbha, the status of some 29 seats appeared to be clear, while the remaining 33 were disputed. Similarly, there are problems regarding seats in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. The Sena had demanded more seats in Mumbai and MMR, which other partners have almost agreed to, said sources. Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar) will get more in their respective areas of influence. The Congress has increased its demand in view of its 13 Lok Sabha seats. It wants more seats than the partners.

The Mahayuti partners had last met officially to discuss seat-sharing and other matters a fortnight ago in Nagpur, and later with Union Minister Amit Shah during his visit to Mumbai. Shah had separately met BJP leaders before meeting the partners, who he assured of resolving matters that remain pending at the state level.

According to information, the BJP has zeroed in on 85 seats that it has been concentrating on. Of these, 25 are such that the party needs to make extra efforts despite winning them in 2019 when the BJP had 105 MLAs, 17 short of its 2014 numbers.

Data from the Assembly elections in 2014 and 2019, and three Lok Sabha polls since 2014, has been mined to know the booth-wise polling for the party. Based on the risk factors, the constituencies have been segregated into three categories. Senior leaders from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana have been roped in to supervise the election work. Maharashtra in-charge and Union minister Bhupender Yadav had convened a meeting of these leaders two days ago.

NCP chief Ajit Pawar called a meeting of his MLAs on Wednesday evening. They were supposed to discuss internal issues in view of the forthcoming polls and matters of sharing power in the state-run
corporations.