PTI, MUMBAI: Overcoming their strained ties and grandiose declarations of going solo, the BJP and Shiv Sena Monday announced a seat-sharing pact for the ensuing Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra. The announcement was made by BJP president Amit Shah and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at a joint press conference in the night, shortly after Shah flew in from Jaipur.
The BJP will contest 25 seats and Shiv Sena 23 of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. The two parties will contest an equal number of seats, after allotting allies their due share of segments, in polls for the 288-member state Assembly, due this year.
Both Shah and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said public sentiment was that the two parties should come together. Shah recalled his earlier remark that the BJP and Sena
will together win at least 45 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. Crores of workers of BJP and Shiv Sena wanted the alliance between the two parties, Shah said. The Sena is the oldest ally of BJP, he added.
The Ram temple has been the common thread for alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena and has to be built at the earliest, Thackeray said. BJP and Sena are parties with national ideology which
have come together in wider public interest, Fadnavis said. In principle, both the parties are pro-Hindutva, he added. The alliance renewal announcement comes after several hard-hitting editorials in Sena mouthpiece Saamana blasting the BJP in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular.
