Don’t let rebels play spoilsport, Amit Shah warns Mahayuti leaders

Mumbai and New Delhi: Rein in potential rebels and use only elective merit as a yardstick, Union home minister Amit Shah told the three top leaders of the Mahayuti alliance in Delhi on Thursday. At a marathon meeting that lasted four hours, chief minister Eknath Shinde, and deputy chief ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar met Shah in Delhi to discuss the disputed seats for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra.

The seat-sharing formula between the three coalition partners – the Shiv Sena, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – is yet to be finalised for the 288-member assembly. They are also deadlocked over 15-odd seats and the exchange of some of constituencies. The BJP and Shinde-led Sena are at loggerheads over some seats in Mumbai and Vidarbha, while Ajit Pawar is reportedly insisting on more constituencies.

Shah was blunt with the Mahayuti leaders on Thursday, when he directed them to use only elective merit as a yardstick to decide on seat sharing and seat allocation. He said no party should field candidates merely to stake a claim to constituencies.

Shah reportedly pointed out that since the three parties were going into elections together for the first time, and that interests at the local level are bound to clash, rebellion needed to be checked.

Reminding the Mahayuti leaders of the alliance’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, he said all three parties needed to make sure potential rebels didn’t play spoilsport. He reportedly said that since the NCP had traditionally been an enemy of the BJP, leaders of both parties must be particularly careful.

The BJP and Ajit Pawar-led NCP have both staked their claim to the Ashti seat, where latter’s Balasaheb Ajabe is the sitting MLA. Despite this, the BJP’s Suresh Dhas is eyeing the seat. In Tasgaon in Sangli, Ajit Pawar wants to field an NCP candidate, while the BJP wants former MP Sajay Patil’s son to contest.

Meanwhile, the Shinde-led Sena and BJP are clashing over seats in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, including Kalyan East and Airoli, from where the BJP has fielded Sulbha Gaikwad and Ganesh Naik, respectively. Party workers from both parties are not seeing eye to eye at the local level. There is also a stalemate over a few seats in Mumbai, including Andheri East, Kalina and Versova, where both the Sena and BJP have multiple candidates.

The BJP’s staunch objection to the candidature of NCP leader Nawab Malik, to be fielded from Mankhurd-Shivajinagar, and the Shinde camp’s Swikriti Pradeep Sharma from Andheri East, has also upset the two allies. Nawab Malik, who was jailed in a money laundering case, is alleged by the BJP to have underworld links. The BJP has also opposed Sharma’s candidate due to the controversial background of her husband, Pradeep Sharma, a former police officer.

Seat-sharing too has hit a nerve. The alliance was earlier believed to have arrived at the following formula: BJP – 155 to 160 seats, Shiv Sena – 85 to 90 seats, NCP – 45 to 50 seats. However, the BJP wants to restrict the Sena to 73 seats, while the Maharashtra CM is insisting on 90. The BJP wants a few seats to be given to the Ramdas Athavale-led Republican Party of India (RPI) from the Sena and BJP’s quota.

After the meeting with Shah, Devendra Fadnavis said, “The seat-sharing for 278 seats has been completed and the remaining ten seats will be decided soon. The BJP will release its second list by tomorrow and so will the other allies. The discussion in Delhi turned out to be very positive and helped us resolve the issues.”

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