MUMBAI: Amid delay in seat-sharing pact with the BJP, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will preside a meeting on Saturday to discuss the preparations for the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
Prominent Sena leaders, office-bearers and ticket aspirants will attend the meeting here, a party release said.
District and taluka-level chiefs of the party along with aspirants interviewed for poll tickets were invited to the meeting, it said. Party sources said the Sena is making preparations to contest all the 288 Assembly seats in case alliance talks with the BJP collapse.
The Sena meet comes in the background of BJP leaders from Maharashtra holding discussion with the central brass on Thursday in Delhi to assess poll preparedness for all the seats.
Senior Maharashtra BJP leaders, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and party’s state unit president Chandrakant Patil, were present at the meeting.
The BJP and the Sena are locked in hard bargaining for distribution of seats among themselves and smaller partners of the NDA.
The BJP is said to be offering a maximum of 120 seats to the Sena.
Thackeray is insisting on equal distribution of seats and sharing of the chief minister’s post for 2.5 years each in the event of the alliance retaining power.
In 2014, both parties had contested separately with the BJP winning 122 seats and the Sena 63. Fadnavis took over as the CM on October 31, 2014, and the Sena joined his government in December.