MUMBAI: The BJP appears confused over Assembly seat distribution. State BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule was recently compelled to retract his statement that the party would contest 235-240 seats out of the total 288 assembly seats, keeping the rest for the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
Bawankule showed his ambitious side while addressing his party leaders, saying it was supposed to be ahead of others in election matters. If anything, Bawankule’s call to arms upset the Shinde-led Shiv Sena for it indicated far less accommodation for the Shinde faction than it expects. That also alerted the opposition camp that foresaw early signs of discomfort in the ruling allies.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil said that Bawankule only unravelled what lay in the heart of his party bosses. his party really thinks, it has come out in public through its president’s mouth. “They wanted to minus Uddhav Thackeray from Shiv Sena. And now, they will finish off Shinde by asking his faction to either contest on a BJP ticket or surrender. This will be the end of Shiv Sena,” said Patil.
He said the BJP strategy was use-and-throw. First, they used Shinde to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government, then they split Shiv Sena and now they want to end the Sena,” Patil said.
Sanjay Shirsat from the Shinde-led faction said that Bawankule has no right to comment on seat distribution. “We will never accept 50 seats. The present talk of seat sharing is meaningless,” said Shirsat. Another MLA said his faction will demand not less than 120 seats in the elections. Later, state BJP president Chandrashekar Bawankule said his statement was twisted by the media.