Mumbai: After a week of hard negotiations the BJP-Shiv Sena finalised a 137-90 seat-sharing formula for the BMC elections. Till late on Monday, Sena functionaries said there was a dispute over 14 seats and said they had put the onus on BJP as the big party in the alliance to take ‘everyone’ along. Political observers said that after a week of talks, DCM Eknath Shinde had held sway and got the BJP to agree to a ‘respectable’ figure.“Our talks are over. We will now campaign jointly and make sure the Mahayuti’s mayor is anointed in the BMC. The BJP will fight 137 seats and Sena will fight 90 seats. Smaller allies will be given tickets by us from our quota of 137-90 seats. All have been accommodated. We have come to a conclusion after a minute discussion. That is why it took so long,” said Mumbai BJP chief MLA Ameet Satam. Sena functionary Rahul Shewale said talks were positive and a good seat-sharing formula was finalised. The Shinde-led Sena dragged seat-sharing talks for one whole week, ultimately forcing the BJP to distribute AB forms without declaring any official list. Till Monday evening, the Sena too had not released any official list of candidates but it gave out AB forms to some aspirants on Monday and they will file their nominations on Tuesday. Political observers said this was a big embarrassment for the BJP as it could not declare a list of official candidates and had to distribute AB forms to candidates in a mid night operation. Analysts said this is probably the first time that BJP could not declare their candidate list for a prestige election like the BMC and was a dampener for the Mahayuti which was riding the momentum of the wins in the municipal council and nagar panchayat polls last week. The BJP gave out AB forms to over 60 aspirants, many of whom even submitted the nomination form. “Usually national parties like BJP are known to issue formal candidate lists, which hasn’t been done this time till Monday evening. The Congress which is the other national party in the fray declared a first list of candidates. It seems that Shinde managed to exhaust BJP in talks that lasted for a week but remained inconclusive till Monday despite both being in the Mahayuti govt and NCP also kept out of the alliance for BMC polls. Even though some may claim this is a strategy to prevent poaching, this is a setback for the BJP,” a political observer said.
