Maharashtra BJP leaders with Amit Shah and JP Nadda
While the BJP is reviewing its crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, on the other hand its allies have started to increase their woes in the assembly elections. In Maharashtra, two big allies of NDA have staked their claim on the seats.
NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal has made the first claim for the seats. Bhujbal has said that NCP will contest on 80 seats in the upcoming assembly elections. Another big claim regarding seats in NDA has been made by Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam has demanded 100 seats in Maharashtra.
Assembly elections for 288 seats are scheduled to be held in Maharashtra four months from now, where the NDA is in direct competition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The manner in which the claims of seats have started after the election is going to be a challenge for the BJP in the future. There are two main reasons for this-
1. Decline in BJP’s vote percentage and number of MPs and 2. Growing clan of NDA parties in Maharashtra.
Who is in Maharashtra NDA?
Compared to 2014 and 2019, the shape of NDA in Maharashtra has changed. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) currently has 6 parties in Maharashtra. NDA had 5 parties in 2014 and 4 in 2019.
BJP is the largest party of NDA in Maharashtra. Along with this, Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and NCP led by Ajit Pawar are included in the alliance. Both these parties have both MLAs and MPs.
Ramdas Athavale’s RPI and Raj Thackeray’s MNS are also part of the coalition. Ramdas Athavale is also a minister in the Modi government. MNS had supported BJP before the election. Apart from these parties, Mahadev Jankar’s Rashtriya Samaj Paksha is also a part of NDA.
Now know the claims of the parties regarding the seats
1. BJP- BJP being the largest party is responsible for seat distribution. However, according to the history so far, BJP will contest the elections in the highest number of seats in the NDA.
In 2014, BJP contested on 260 seats and in 2019 on 144 seats. It won 122 seats in 2014 and 105 seats in 2019. Currently BJP has 106 MLAs. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP contested on 28 seats, which is 58 percent of the total seats.
2. Shiv Sena- Under the leadership of Eknath Shinde, the Shiv Sena currently has 38 MLAs. Shiv Sena contested 15 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, out of which it won 7 seats. Shiv Sena is now demanding 100 seats in the assembly.
Senior leader Ramdas Kadam has made this demand on behalf of the party. The party contends that in 2019, the undivided Shiv Sena was given 124 seats. Our performance has not deteriorated even after the split.
3. NCP- Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party has demanded 80-90 seats. Minister Chhagan Bhujbal has made this demand on behalf of NCP. Bhujbal is considered very close to Ajit Pawar.
NCP got 4 seats in NDA alliance in Lok Sabha elections. That is why NCP is demanding more seats in assembly elections.
4. RPI- RPI has not yet made any statement regarding the seat demand, but last time RPI got 6 seats. This time too the party will claim these seats.
5. MNS- There was talk of giving one seat to MNS in the Lok Sabha elections, but it was not given. It remains to be seen how many seats MNS will get in the assembly elections. MNS is fighting the elections alone so far.
In 2009, MNS won the highest number of 13 seats. In 2019, the party fielded candidates on 101 seats, but only one of its candidates managed to win. In terms of vote percentage, MNS can also claim 15-20 seats.
6. National Society Party- In 2019, the party got 6 seats from the alliance quota, out of which the party won one seat. This time in the Lok Sabha elections also the party won 1 seat, but it could not win.
In such a situation, even this time RSP’s claim can remain only on 6 seats.
Why Maharashtra seat sharing is tension for BJP?
1. Compared to 2014 and 2019, BJP’s vote percentage has decreased. This time the number of seats has also reduced drastically. BJP had contested on more seats in previous elections only on the basis of Lok Sabha. This time it has only 2 more MPs than Shiv Sena.
2. The minimum claim of allies other than BJP is around 200 seats. It includes 100 seats of Shiv Sena and 80 seats of NCP. In such a situation only 88 seats are left for BJP.
